Thanks, Graham.  May switch to double braid, given that Home Depot supplied me with decent stuff when I made the lazy jacks.  We didn't have much trouble eye splicing it....a gadget from New England Ropes, plus a harsh snowy Virginia winter....we redid them all.

John Cornicelli wrote:

What do you think?  Can choice of rope type, braided (cored) vs. twisted (3 part) help? I had problems with the twisted traditional rope on mainmast halyard and no problems with braided on the foremast halyard.

Double braid seems to me much less likely to twist.  I'm intrigued by the 12 strand stuff but have not seen any.  I have long admired the handling characteristics of 8 strand Nylon anchor warp though.  It is too stretchy for halyards (but excellent therefore for anchoring).  If the polyester stuff has similar characteristics without the stretch it will be excellent, and much easier to splice.  I paid a professional to splice eyes in Aron's double braid upper topping lifts, but have used bowlines everywhere else.  I believe you lose some strength with a bowline (some say 50%) but the breaking strain of 10mm double braid is much higher than my rig will ever impose on it (36sq metre sail).  I've hammered the rig over 3000 miles without problems.

What do you think?  Can choice of rope type, braided (cored) vs. twisted (3 part) help? I had problems with the twisted traditional rope on mainmast halyard and no problems with braided on the foremast halyard.

Well, then climbers do it differently. The climber who taught me (he actually held a safety course in mast climbing for us engineers), showed us how to just stuff the rope in a canvas bag. No fancy figure eights, just stuffing , starting with the bitter end. I have used this method for over ten seasons in Johanna plus almost two seasons in Frøken Sørensen. When dropping sail the halyard leaves the bag with no snags, every time.

Cheers, Arne

PS 20140822: On Malena I didn’t know better, so I coiled the halyard, starting at the cleat and coiling towards the bitter end. I always coiled it clockwise. When I was to lower the sail, I placed an inverted bucket on the cockpit bench and then the coiled rope over it, such that the halyard would uncoil itself anti-clockwise. This worked quite well, as long as one stayed focused.

On three of the Stavanger-junks; Samson, Edmond D and Marie G, the halyards are simply rolled up on reels, mounted at the rail. That works brilliantly well.

 

 

I am most grateful for all the answers. As an interim solution I will work from the simplest to the more complicated to see me through the rest of the sailing season, beginning with eliminating the swivel at the yard.

At the end of the season I will rethink the arrangement and take lessons from the wisdom contained above. Regaining a marina berth with the sail jammed at the masthead is not something I want to repeat. Other marina berth holders thought I was merely showing off the merits of the rig because I am the only Chinese rigged boat in the area!

I have long stopped coiling ropes on my boats, preferring to flake. I have also talked to mountaineers, who know about ropes. When they throw a rope over a cliff face, it has got to unravel. The told me that coiled ropes may unravel, but too often they do not. Flaked ropes pretty well always unravel, they say.

I first thought that twist in the halyard rope itself was responsible. I removed it, laid it out, untwisted it to the best of my ability and re-roved it - all to no avail. So I bought a new halyard, laid it out, untwisted it, roved it - again all to no avail. Annoying and expensive.

I should have consulted on this forum first, so another lesson learned.

Again, thank you all. Don