Spinnaker Haliard Choice

[Phil Alderson]

The Spinnaker Halliard that I am using at the moment is allways kinking, and seems to be very high friction.

What are other people using?

I have heard of people using 3mm D12 and wondered how slippy it is for the crew getting a grip during the hoist?

[Stuberry]

On Ronin the halyard is 4mm excel racing that's been stripped/tapered.

When we take the mast off we always store the halyard up and down the mast rather than coiling it. This is a top tip from Pete B who assures me the halyard hasn't ever been coiled. We haven't had problems with kinks... yet. (touch wood)

[phil_kirk]

We have 4mm excel racing running through 30mm blocks. 

I usually do coil the rope but might try the idea the idea of running it up and down the boat when trailing.  I have had an ocasional kinks but the larger blocks and an elastic take up in the system seems to keep them at bay.

We transformed Slippery when we put the elastic take up on her system. We used to get a lot of kinks.

[Will_Lee]

We used 4mm holt proline on both Atum and Antidote. Like D12. We stuff some other rope up the middle where it needs to cleat. Never an issue with twists.

I think halyard twists are caused by blocks not being quite in line, by the fly away at the back not being quite right and by the halyard being too long.

[Phil Alderson]

The Halyard is a bit long, I have been sailing with about 1m hanging from the retreval patch while I get the length right.

I also need to replace the takeup elastic, as it is getting a bit old.

I normally lace the halyard up and down the mast when towing, but just as I feel it is more secure than a coil.
Having said that I am just sailing at the club at the moment the mast has not been down in six months.

The stuff currently on the boat looks like 5mm racing, and it is just not working.

[MK]

I had tangle issues with the sk4, a snag on every drop, i fixed it by pulling the halyard out of the mast when i had the boat on it's side and dragging it across the carpark so it was completely straight and could fully untwist, then threaded it back in top to bottom which seemed to cure it, it is also 4mm tapered i think

[JimC]

I think halyard twists are caused by blocks not being quite in line,

I've heard that in connection with Canoes too: they reckon if the line is rubbing on the cheeks of the block on one side it tends to twist up. Not sure why.

[Will_Lee]

Yeah - what put me on top thi was our **mainsheet** doing it when we had a poorly aligned block. Still worked, but the sides of the groove in the sheave seemed to put a twist in.

[phil_kirk]

When fitting out E-numbers I laid out the Spinny Halyard first to ensure it ran straight and without any unnecesary clashes. The space around the base of the mast was particularly congested and some lines have only 10mm clearance from adjacent structure or other lines.

To ensure every thing ran correctly and ensure there were no clashes I tied the kicker cunnigham and spinny halyard to the roof of the garage so I could have the lines running in the correct direction under some tension.   

My fit out was complicated by the jib fine tune system which gave me lines running forward from the mast stump as well as out to the racks.  I did all this with only 5 fronting plates attached to the deck.  One of which was for the jib fine tune only.