New Guy! Just got a DS III

[morrisammo]

HEy,,, that's a real good idea~~~~~~!

[TIM WEBB]

Don't you mean "Hay, that's a real good idea!"?

- tip your waitress, and I'll be here all week! ;-P

[Alan]

[snort]

[morrisammo]

I have a main sail Halyard question.
where does it go?

I can't seem to find any good pictures,

It looks like the mast head has two pulleys. I have a new on on order, seeing the one on the mast is a mess.
does the rope go over both pulleys and down the front to a cleat, I have seen pic's of the halyard coming out the side of the mast, but my mast has no holes in it.

[GreenLake]

If your mast has no holes, then chances are, your mast uses external halyards.

The halyard runs up the front, over both sheaves and down the back to the sail.

If your sheaves are broken, or crumbling with age, which is common, they can be replaced without replacing the entire masthead. The latter should only be necessary if it is damaged in other ways (impact damage, perhaps).

[morrisammo]

Thanks,,,
the head that is on it has an open top, and one rusty, sheave, I ordered and new head,, that in the picture, has a top and two sheaves. that helps, me figure it out,

the jib has a pulley on the front of the mast,, and I will replace every rope on the boat.


I have a bunch of parts on order,, for the boat and the trailer. feels like I'm waiting for Christmas. coming in the Brown truck.

[jeadstx]

As Greenlake mentions you should have external halyards. The main halyard (1/4" line) runs from the head of the sail along the sail track to the mast head. The line passes over both sheaves (D&R sells replacement sheaves as well as a mast head) and then down the front of the mast to a block (cheek block) mounted on the base of the mast. Through the block to be cleated to the cleat on the cuddy cabin top. I installed cam cleats next to the horn cleats for my halyards. Some have replaced the cheek blocks at the base of the mast with a cam cleat / block combination hardware. Intensity Sails ( http://www.intensitysails.com/gesaforda.html ) has this piece of hardware as well as other hardware under their Day Sailer section.

The jib halyard (1/4" line) goes from the head of the jib to the block just below the fore stay down the front of the mast to a cheek block (like the main but on the other side), then to the horn cleat.

If you are replacing the mast head, I would suggest putting flotation in the upper 2' of the mast, although your mast may be filled with flotation foam. Some boats had flotation in the mast.

John

[GreenLake]

There are many ways to rig external halyards. And one of the fun things about owning a DS is to make the setup fit your preferences.

First, though, John's suggestions about adding flotation is excellent. Stuff in a pool noodle, or two from the top. I wouldn't limit myself to 2', but there's no need to stuff the entire mast, because the leverage is best at the tip. Pool noodles are better than expanding foam for this. With expanding foam you never know what you get, and it's a mess to deal with when it fails with age. Just make sure they are wedged so that, even if the mast top gets under water, they don't "float" up inside the mast towards the mast base.

Second, I'm personally not a fan of halyards lead on deck. Only time I've ever seen a main come down unplanned (under sail, no less) was on a boat that had halyards lead to the cuddy top. I've also never been in a situation where I had to drop a sail and couldn't do that by reaching the halyard cleats on the mast. If you already have the hardware set up that way or know and like that setup, remember, it's your preference.

Third, lines and suggested diameters. With modern rope design and materials 1/4" line is vastly oversized based on the required strength. With something like FSE Robline's Dinghy Control line, you could go down to 4mm and still have it be strong and not stretch. Similar with Amsteel from Samson Ropes. Both would reduce the "weight aloft", which helps counter the effect of the foam you added in step 1. Their difference is that Amsteel is very slippery (it has no cover) and therefore you'd need to splice a tail to it from some cheaper, heavier and grippier double braid. (That's a fun project, if you like it, and instructions are on L-36.com (look for halyard splice)). The tail would start about where the cleat is, when the sail is fully raised.

The Dinghy control comes with a cover and is grippy enough that you can use it as is. It will look weirdly undersized, like a shoelace, but I have it on another boat where it works well. (I also use it for outhaul and reef lines on my DS). For more suggestions on what lines to use where see: Rope for various lines.

Fourth, I'm thinking of adding a 2:1 purchase to my jib halyard. Something to do with better control of the luff tension. My sail has an internal luff wire which could be tensioned to the point that it will actually off-load the fore-stay. Without purchase I can't get the halyard tensioned enough. Some people here suggested using a trucker's hitch in the halyard to get the extra purchase; for that you'd need a check block on the base of the mast. You tie the knot, lead the tail through the block, up to the hitch and back down to whatever blocks/cleats you have for the halyard.

Or you could cut the halyard above the mast bottom, and tie it to a floating block. Then lead a line up through the block and to the halyard cleat. This can be extended to a 3:1 purchase with an additional cheek block at the bottom of the mast. (See also: 3:1 Halyard Tensioner).

[DigitalMechanic]

This works pretty good...
http://www.harken.com/productdetail.aspx?id=39802&taxid=416

Think I found them on defender.com for $50 each.

Gives a little extra purchase and cleats without the need to tie off, which makes it easy to get more tension if need be. Also helps move things out of the snag position that the jib sheet sometimes gets hung up on. And it eliminates the defensive position that the stock cleats for the halyards played against the boom vang. If you add a downhaul for the jib later, a quick un-cleat of the halyard and pull of the downhaul has the jib secured to the deck in about a half of second.

I think I need to go buy a pool noodle now. Seems like a cheap and easy risk mitigation project

The sheeves on my mast head are looking pretty shabby so might need to replace. I remember talking to Rudy about a tabernacle pin that was over sized. Apparently I have a mast (or at least tabernacle) that was used for a brief period of time, and is a different size. He mentioned retro-fitting something for me. None the less, the masthead on my boat does not have the pins for the sheeves visible. It looks like one solid piece. So I am not sure how I would install new sheeves. Furthermore, now that I am thinking about it, I hope that the masthead Rudy sells will even fit my mast

Anyway, amazing what a pool noodle will make you think of, lol. More projects Thanks GL

[GreenLake]

DM, about your mast. Good thing would be to make sure of the profile and dimensions, and anything else. A good photo of the masthead might help someone recognize it. On mine, the pins were aluminum and flush with the surface. I had to drill them out. Replaced them with SS clevis pins. I

The combined swivel block/cleat combination is better than the combination of cheek block on the mast and cleat on the cuddy. It does not add any purchase, though. The block in it is just a fairlead that gives no mechanical advantage - in fact the opposite: there's a small loss from friction. Depending on your size and reach, however, changing the direction of pull may make things more comfortable. It's a preference thing. (I just note here that I'm not alone in preferring the original setup.)

Incidentally, I don't have a lot of problems snagging the jib sheet on a tack. Some of that may be due to the way my sheet is rigged with a short bit of Dyneema between the midpoint of the sheet and the clew. My sheet happens to be a bit on the heavy side and together with being continuous that cuts down on flogging and snagging. It may also be a matter of how one sails a tack. I don't start by throwing loose the jib, but usually keep it sheeted well into the turn, until it backwinds. Sometimes I even let it backwind a bit to help get the bow around (this depends on conditions). Only then do I release the old sheet and pick up the new one.

Finally, a question: I'm not quite sure what you mean with "defensive position" wrt. the vang.

[DigitalMechanic]

Agreed. The snag usually occurs in light wind. Most of the time we see pretty good wind on the St Johns, and that combined with a little experience can help in preventing a snag. I usually pull both ends of the sheet tight, and then cross them over when ready to tack/gybe, which keeps them up and over the congested area of snagables. I also have a 5 year old for a first mate, so the cleaner it all is, the better/easier for him (and he does things a little slower, but is fun). I actually recently rigged a jib downhaul, and as the retard I am... I cut the line too short. This left me trying to figure out what to do with the other end of the line. I ended up putting a spare carabiner on it, and latching it to the mast above the cheek blocks, etc where the halyards run. With the line there from the jib downhaul, it makes sure that the jib sheet is lifted up and over that area every time for a clean tack/gybe. I thought I had made some random discovery, but Tim assured me that I was not the first person to try that, lol.

Defensive position is where the angle from where the halyards go from the cheek blocks on the mast go to the horn cleats on top of the cuddy. This contradicts the angle that the boom vang takes (looks like an X from the side of the boat). Essentially when the vang goes out, they collide. Does that make sense?

[GreenLake]

Defensive position is where the angle from where the halyards go from the cheek blocks on the mast go to the horn cleats on top of the cuddy. This contradicts the angle that the boom vang takes (looks like an X from the side of the boat). Essentially when the vang goes out, they collide. Does that make sense?

OK, so for someone like me, who uses horn cleats on the mast, that shouldn't be an issue.

My boat came with horn cleats on the mast and horn cleats on the cuddy. Who knows whether the former were original, but I use the horn cleats on the cuddy for other purposes.

Five-year-olds make great crew!

[DigitalMechanic]

Yep. This is a problem I created for myself when I upgraded the boom vang. I think I have shown pictures of it before, but I needed to really pull the part of the vang that connects to mast down really low, so the angle would work with my fairlead/cleat on top of the cuddy. Of course, once I got to the point where I got the vang sorted, it leads to another project... you know how it goes

About the sheeves in the mast head... I can actually see where the center of the sheeves are located. I could probably drill that out. What sheeves do you recommend replacing them with?

[GreenLake]

Masthead sheaves in your picture: just drill those out and replace with same size SS clevis pins. (Just measure the hole and purchase based on that). If you are worried about dissimilar metals touching, use TefGel to isolate. Cleving pins have a hole on the end. You can use cotter pins, cotter rings or whatever. I found that whatever length was just long enough didn't quite fit all the way (exposed only 3/4 of the hole). So I ended up not using cotter pins or rings, but SS seizing wire. At least at the top of the mast you don't have to worry about an errant sheet snatching off the wire.

[morrisammo]

Wow again you folks have great info!

The head on my mast is in bad shape, one sheeve is missing,, the other rusted, and has some unk, type pin in it,,

I ordered a new head,, still waiting on the Brown Truck,, like a kid Christmas morning.

The noodle in the top of the mast,, Love it! it will be done!

I just started getting the pin stripes and decals off the hull, and my hope is next weekend I'll get the boat off the trailer.

I started looking at the top of the centerboard. the front has a cable, it looks OK,, , but on the top near the front,, a Rope,,, in my case a messed up lil part of a rope,,
guess, I'll get the centerboard out, change out the rubber washers, check out the overall condition of the centerboard slot and see what that rope does?

I checked out the lake, boat ramp, closest to my house,, only a 15 min drive,, and a good size lake,, the lake is too full,, at this momant to use the boat ramp, but I'll get the boat all ready, so when the water is right,, I'll be on it.