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Re: Mast head crane

Posted: Tue Jul 29, 2014 8:31 pm
by stewart
Hi
I have old style mast crane ( boat number 167) . I was thinking about drilling a hole in top horizontal face of crane to secure halyard end. I seems like it would be better to stop halyard chaffing. I was just wondering if other people had done this and if it worked or not.

Thanks

Stewart

Re: Mast head crane

Posted: Tue Jul 29, 2014 10:20 pm
by Rick
stewart wrote:Hi
I have old style mast crane ( boat number 167) . I was thinking about drilling a hole in top horizontal face of crane to secure halyard end. I seems like it would be better to stop halyard chaffing. I was just wondering if other people had done this and if it worked or not.

Thanks

Stewart


First check the rules :wink:

Re: Mast head crane

Posted: Wed Jul 30, 2014 8:26 am
by ccsc_barker
I have the old crane too so I have used 'shock cord' (3mm dyneema) and threaded it through the lower two holes, knotted it so it is tight, threaded the main halyard through, stopper knot and half hitched it and now I have a halyard that hardly wears!

This is legal as I have only used an extra small length of 'shock cord' as suggested by Chris Henderson at last year's nationals :D

Sam

Re: Mast head crane

Posted: Wed Jul 30, 2014 8:50 am
by DangerBoy
Rick wrote:
stewart wrote:Hi
I have old style mast crane ( boat number 167) . I was thinking about drilling a hole in top horizontal face of crane to secure halyard end. I seems like it would be better to stop halyard chaffing. I was just wondering if other people had done this and if it worked or not.

Thanks

Stewart


First check the rules :wink:


I seem to remember Russ Clarke telling us that once of the UK committee members did that to his mast and he stopped having any trouble at all. It shouldn't be too hard to design a mast head crane that gives some sort of halyard longevity

Re: Mast head crane

Posted: Wed Jul 30, 2014 10:54 am
by Rick
DangerBoy wrote:
Rick wrote:
stewart wrote:Hi
I have old style mast crane ( boat number 167) . I was thinking about drilling a hole in top horizontal face of crane to secure halyard end. I seems like it would be better to stop halyard chaffing. I was just wondering if other people had done this and if it worked or not.

Thanks

Stewart


First check the rules :wink:


I seem to remember Russ Clarke telling us that once of the UK committee members did that to his mast and he stopped having any trouble at all. It shouldn't be too hard to design a mast head crane that gives some sort of halyard longevity


You'd have thought this would be easy ... I think there are a number of factors in this equation; rope selection, maintenance, crane design, shackle choice, halyard / downhaul tension ...

I have never had a failure ... (jinxed now) and I think the main reason is two fold; 1) I cut a bit of the halyard when it looks a bit worn 2) I have a favourite shackle (of which I have two) which is a nice smooth, slightly oversized forged design that gives the rope a slightly larger radius ...

All this agonising over the crane when the halyard breaks but I wonder if the shackle has a significant role in the system?

Re: Mast head crane

Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2014 12:43 pm
by Steve P
Don't know much, and I'm actually selling GBR164, but I'd put the halyard chafe/wear problems down to insufficient halyard tension. Halyard has a double purchase, down haul has 6 / 8 so unless the halyard is bar tight, the downhaul not only stretches the mainsail luff but also the halyard causing the high wear over shackle. Set up the halyard bar tight to overcome the max downhaul force and then you can happily work the downhaul all day without fear of wearing out the halyard.
How does everyone set their halyard tension? I set up mine with a bight around my foot and a good bit of body weight. No halyard wear and no compressional mast failures experienced - yet!
Best Regards,
Steve
GBR164

PS Boat still for sail!!!!!

Re: Mast head crane

Posted: Sun Aug 03, 2014 8:58 am
by bristollad
so guys i have had my main halyard for about 11 month with no props attached to the old mast crane, so my mast got broken at stone and now i have a new top section with the new style mast crane i have sailed with this in place for i would say around 14 hours in total so around 2 weekends and then yesterday it snapped at the crane where the the halyard pass over the cast aluminium,I had to limp back in to shore and it took over a hour to re thread it and we had to split the mast down which was a pain in the ass to say least if i was at a event that would off been day over and weekend finished

the crane needs to be re designed as it does no work or just go back to the old style one at the end of the day no matter what you do with it you cant argue that rope passing past rough aluminium is a good idea
so now i am going to drill a hole in the top of it to and tie the main halyard off the top of it rather then having the stopper knot inside of it which is a bit poor having to do this to a brand new mast crane

thats my view any how

Re: Mast head crane

Posted: Sun Aug 03, 2014 10:41 pm
by stewart
Hi Sam

Suggestion below sound like it works

[quote]I have the old crane too so I have used 'shock cord' (3mm dyneema) and threaded it through the lower two holes, knotted it so it is tight, threaded the main halyard through, stopper knot and half hitched it and now I have a halyard that hardly wears!
[/quote

I was wondering is it the back 2 holes behind the sheeve that you put the Dyneema through ? and you are passing the part of the halyard that gets dead ended behind this and on to be deadended on the top hole? So the 3mm Dynemma is keeping the 2 parts of the halyard apart, and it reduced chaffing. I might of misunderstood ! I guess a pin through back holes would work just as well

I had thought most of the rope wear I got was on the hole that rope was deadended on with stopper knot, and it was just because the halyard gets pulled downwards against the corners of the Aluminium - but I might be wrong maybe it is the 2 parts of the rope rubbing against each other

Next weekend I will have a look to change it to be as you suggest, as I seemed to need to cut rope back after about every 3 times the boat is used at moment, and I might start running out of halyard to cut back soon !

Thanks

Stewart

Re: Mast head crane

Posted: Tue Aug 05, 2014 7:43 pm
by paul manning
Let's have a look at this at the nationals and report back to the technical committee for discussion.

Re: Mast head crane

Posted: Mon Oct 27, 2014 12:50 pm
by jreekie
I was having a load of issues with my new boat and resolved this by splicing a 2m section of 4mm dynema onto the end of the halyard and using this to terminate at the top as per the new design. Since i have done this I have sailed fro a number of days with no issues. Before the halyard could not cut the turn radius and used to wear through in a day.

The design is fine if you do this otherwise it is a major pain. For example at the Nationals I had to do this every day and even then had a failure during 1 of the windy days which resulted in some free style landing techniques with the main half down some way up the beach. Thankfully all turned out well.

Cheers John

Re: Mast head crane

Posted: Tue Oct 28, 2014 10:03 am
by Rick
John,

Could you take a few photos and write a set of instructions that we could post on the website?

Re: Mast head crane

Posted: Tue Oct 28, 2014 10:04 pm
by bristollad
So just out of interest when someone is buying a brand new boat with this halyard problem do ovington let the person know buying boat that the first thing they should do before sailing the musto skiff is to modify the mast head crane or splice bits of rope to over come this issue or do they just let them find out the hard way?

Re: Mast head crane

Posted: Tue Oct 28, 2014 10:07 pm
by bristollad
And has it been discussed with the tech committee?

Re: Mast head crane

Posted: Tue Oct 28, 2014 10:49 pm
by Chris T
Like any customer Ovington expect the item to be supplied in a useable fashion, we have complained to Selden and have been monitoring the forum to see what the issues are.

For me, I have drilled a hole in the top and dead ended the halyard with a simple knot. I do not like the new fitting one bit, its not easy to thread or to check for wear.

I have posted in the Committee section which I believe will be coming out in the sailors survey, hopefully that will move things forward.

Re: Mast head crane

Posted: Wed Oct 29, 2014 1:53 pm
by jreekie
Hi Rick,

I will take some pictures in Australia as the boat with mast has gone.

Cheers John