Main halyard

Racks are better because they do not slip like cleats can - this is less of a problem on Fireballs as you don't use downhaul like skiffs do (ie huge purchase to depower).

On my B14, the old ali rig has a cleat, but the new carbon stick has a rack.  We use a 2:1 dyneema set up which has a loop spliced in the end to go over the rack.  There is a block below the rack so you can hold tension on and hook it over.  Come to think of it, my Contender is the same.

The system is a complete pain if rigged the other way (a la Laser 2) where the halyard exits at the bottom of the mast in a sheave, you then pull the wire over the rack (hooks face upwards).  Very difficult to get tension. 

Originally posted by Guest#260 Originally posted by Isis Halyards are for girls.   How do you keep the main up on your 600 then?

Shhh!

I assume you mean the Fireball...(and I've got one too)

Wire will stretch less than kevlar.  Ideally you need a block under the halyard rack, so you do actually pull the tension on with the tail and hook the whole lot on the rack, before moving the tail out of the way.  Make sure the cunno is right off, and someone is holding the boom up in such a way that the gooeneck fitting is above the gooseneck, and there is no leech tension.  Put the gooseneck on after you have got the halyard sorted.

Technically speaking your miansail head should not be above the black band anyway, so the tension is not vital.  No-one really uses kevlar any more, we all use wire, halyard locks, or a 2:1 external hertzog setup.

 

On our boat, weve always used a length of kevlar or dyneema as a halyard with a cleat at the bottom where thr halyard exits the mast. When we got our new fully rigged mast, it had the system with a wire strop and fitting which has about 10 teeth on it, and the strop fits over it. as far as i can tell, the only advantage of this system is that it dusent stretch, but weve never had a problem with the dyneema anyway? also weve used the new mast about 6 times, and the rope tail needs replaciing already, and we still havent managed to get as much tension as we did with the old system. The problem we find is that, to hook the strop on, the tail needs to be out of the way, but when we romove it, we always loos some tension. Why is this system fitted as standard?  What system do other people use? After 2 years of using the old mast every weekend, we never had to replace the halyard.