for 2 to 1 or not 2 to 1

I had a selden Haliard lock on both my 505 Masts, great bit of kit when it worked, but when the ferell wears, its a bloody nightmare to get the main to stay up (it required a gentle, controlled be firm pull) something i could never bloody master.  I would say that its going to be far to chunky for a canoe carbon mast, especially if yours is even skinnier Jib.  I am sure a couple of cold winters nights in the garage and some carbon and epoxy could see you bash something together Jim, failing that i would think you are going to have to use a finn v cleat or RS300 cleat on the fron tof the mast method, which in itself is a pain to use when its howling!

Originally posted by Contender 541 Originally posted by JimC So I suppose I am going to have to sit down and design a halyard lock of some description.   Jim - Have a chat with the 505 boys and girls - If I interpret your intention correctly, we have been doing this for years.  We have a device that as you raise the main, there is a point during the lift that when reached, the halyard locks into place at the top of the mast - to release, you raise the main another inch which takes the halyard off the cam and alows the main to fall - no halyard loading on the mast then

You can use a "v" cleat with an external main halyard with a knot in the halyard to place into the "v" cleat. You can also do the same by having a short wire strop using the tail of the strops copper ferrule as the knot that slides into the v cleat. I have used these before, and they are fine, a bit of a pain to find the v cleat with the knot. You also still have all the rope. I prefer the type now on my Farr 3.7 even though it requires rolling the boat to put the sail up.

Edited by Jack Sparrow - 29 Aug 11 at 5:50pm

Originally posted by JimC So I suppose I am going to have to sit down and design a halyard lock of some description.

 always nice when something discussed is showed to help!

Originally posted by oldarn Originally posted by G.R.F. No idea what you mean re 2.1 how else do other systems haul a sail up the mast from down below? On your <original,AltO you have a Superspar mast with a normal 1 to1 system, and I assume a three year old main halliard. Whether kevlar (most likely) or other I guess it was chaffed. I would stick with a 1 to 1 8platt pre-strethed terrylene and put up with some stretch on the first few outings. Much cheaper and at least the cleat is holding the whole halliard and not just the outer surface.

That will stretch a few cm.
May not matter in the Alto, except of course if your head is within a few cm of where you expect the boom to be!
You could always use good old wire.
The trouble with stretchy halyards is that pulling on the mainsheet or kicker effectively loses luff tension, like letting off the cunningham. So you pull on more cunningham to counter it, then you have too much, possibly even damage, when you dump the main or kicker at the windward mark.

If money is tight or you want to use what's on hand, you can always splice a cheap tail into a mast-length of dyneema, this can even save a bit of weight.
Also stretchy rope can chafe more, because it moves across the wear points more.