During the recent nor’easter my spare halyard parted after chaffing on tbe radar mount for 3 days. We had sustained 30 knot wings for 72 hours and 60 knot gust. Is there any way to get a new one in without going up the mast or pulling the mast? I am In New Jersey and looking at over $1000 to have someone go up in a cherry picker and tread a new one.
Any bridges nearby?
Sorry for the storm damage. Maybe an insurance claim ?
Good that you still have use of the primary. Many Nonsuch boats don’t’ have a second halyard.
Maybe sail with one halyard for awhile and be opportunistic looking for a solution. Press your sailing friends for a referral to a good race crew looking to make quick buck ( or 200 ). It’s not uncommon for race crews to recover halyards while racing, it’s no big deal on a calm day at the dock.
It’s probably easier to drop a mousing line with the mast up.
Another option is to spring for a premium winter maintenance cycle because the cost of pulling the mast can be deferred by the benefit of all the stuff you can easily do with the mast down. Good to inspect our rigs every 5 years or so.
Good luck,
Rob…
Is there any of the broken halyard still visible, or did it fall all the way out of the mast?
If it’s still dangling, you may be able to rig up a hook or grabber on a long pole (like tree trimmers use) to snag it, and pull it down.
I haven’t done that, but a similar technique worked for me when I had to replace sail cradle lines and couldn’t reach the eyes on the forward part of the boom. It’d a frustrating process, though, with lots of cursing and near misses.
-- Bob
If your spare halyard was severed, why not have someone hoist you (or you hoist someone) to the top of the mast using the primary halyard, feed one end of a new secondary (spare) halyard over the secondary sheave at the top of the mast and, assuming the halyard runs up the mast internally, have some sort of loop put through the secondary mast exit to grab the new line and pull it out of the mast?
Make sure the end that feeds back to the cockpit it tied off?
Peter G
This may not apply in your area - when I need to pull the mast, I store it on the hard in a marina that has to pull the mast because of their hoist. In that case, pulling the mast is free (just part of pulling the boat).
Also, when I had an N30 down in Forked River a decade ago, while working on my boat a young lady in army fatigues went to the boat next to me and just hoisted herself up the mast and fiddled with worked on something at the top. When I commented on how that was impressive, she replied that it was actually pretty straightforward (ah, to be much younger and thinner). So - you might ask around whether there is someone who does that sort of thing besides the marina staff.
Jon