new sailor, new project

Good evening all, the wife and I have decided to get ourselves into sailing and being some one who likes fixing things we have bought an older miracle, i believe it to be sail #705 so quite old. Unfortunately she has been a little neglected in the in the last few few years and also missing a few fittings and a few ropes.

Halyards usually want to be as thin as you can bear to handle. This makes them run easier through the mast and sheaves.

Mainsheet and jib sheets used to be as thick as 10mm but these days many racing sailors prefer them thinner. Look at the size of the hole in the blocks (pulleys) they have to run through. Or rather, the size of the sheave.

You might want to test a few old ropes in the cleats too, to make sure they are not too small (slip through) or large (don't fit in).

Kicker, cunningham etc might also be limited by the small blocks they run through. There won't be an issue with strength as tiny ropes can take a heck of a lot. It's more about what you can grip comfortably, and what blocks/cleats you've already got.

Originally posted by Paramedic Only buy decent stuff though.

Kinda tricky to tell a knackered block from a good one on ebay isn't it?

Think 2mm dyneema is rated at over 200kg, so that would be some sheetloads!
That would be three strand pre stretched terylene for the halyards, which was pretty much the best we could get at the beginning of the 70s. Really with most dinghy jobs and dyneema the limiting factor is how hard you can pull a thin rope (and whether the existing cleats will grip), you can almost ignore breaking strain as a factor.