When I was living at Warsash, I dug up out of the garden an old Merriman block (recognisable by the trident trademark). Back in the between-the-wars golden era of J class racing, many of the locals would have been engaged as crew, and I daresay one of them "liberated" a block. This one had a bronze sheave, a very small number of bronze rollers (drawing out the geometry, I think the minimum number must be six), a bronze bush, ash cheeks and an iron strap. I cleaned it up, and it was still in working order, though not fit for active service - I eventually sold it. 

[edit] There were five rollers - there's a picture of this style of block on page 4 of the 1928 Merriman catalogue.

Annie either little springs or short lengths of flexible pipe (PJR) would help. And I see from various photos that junkies often spread the maybe three single blocks out a bit presumably to help spread the fankle! A clear aft deck even on a 30 footer seems so hard to achieve. I like your basic little horse. I may be just too tall to make much difference though!

I'm sure we had roller bearing blocks on the 1911 Bristol pilot cutter, on the topping lift and peak halyard purchases. Although we always thought that they were original (all her blocks had very much the same feel about them) we also thought that it might have been unlikely, but given what you say, Arne, about Mr Archer's specs way back then it may not be so unlikely after all.

Cheers,

Pol.

Arne Kverneland wrote:

 My guess is that the peak halyard of a gaff sail takes quite a bit more load than the JR (..but not that much more...

David Tyler wrote:

At one time, I had Barton ball bearing blocks, size 6 or 7, in Tystie's sheet. Eventually the Delrin balls went square ( or rather, cubic) and then fell out. Even when the load is not static, they don't seem to have a very long life. And cubic balls don't rotate as well as spherical ones, even if they don't fall out :-)

Arne, 

Funnily enough I was wondering about how to measure the tension on various parts of the halyard myself when thinking about swl in blocks. My thought was to get a stout spring balance (100kg would be a start?) and lash one end of that with a rolling hitch into the halyard along the deck where it wont get too much in the way. After hoisting the sail, make off the halyard and then complete the hoist with the spring balance in place, the "tail" of the halyard being the temporary line hitched to the free end of the scales.  It would be fun to try it.

The peak halyard in a gaff rig puts a big strain on the upper bit of mast in a  blow. The rig has to work well for that not to be quite scary at times. I can't imagine that the junk mast is feeling that kind of strain, but as for the halyard. I wonder if anyone has ever studied this? Shame I didn't think of doing that simple test before we started our conversion!