Standing rigging

[dwaldo]

On my daysailer the halyard lines attach to a wire rope and at the end of the wire rope is a shackle to attach to the sail. on my other sail boat the halyard line go's to the top of the mast and attaches to the sail, My question is why attach the halyard to the wire rope instead of to the sail? Could I not just put the shackle on the end of the halyard line and not even use wire rope? What is the advantage of wire rope over line?

[GreenLake]

For a halyard you want low stretch. Wire has low stretch. That said, there's low-stretch rope nowadays that you can use for halyards. If you use one of these ropes, forget the wire. Just make sure it's long enough to compensate for the missing length of the wire.