You do not have to attach the dyneema to the wire. You need to attach the dyneema to the tail of your current wire to rope halliard at the rope end. Stitch them together with sail twine, wrap the joint with insulating tape then pull it through from the wire end.

Come on mate. That should be fairly obvious.

Stick with it and you will learn.

Cisco I have often read your posts on here and thought you had a great depth of knowledge of most things sailing but you have just confused me. Highly possible I have got this whole thing the wrong way around so apologies in advance.

But ....

If you were to attach the new dyneema to the rope end of the existing halyard and pull it through (ie pull it up and out the masthead by pulling the wire end) won't that mean that when you get that join back on deck after going up and out the mast you will be holding the dyneema (rope) end with the wire end of the new halyard at the mast? ie the wrong way around?

I am assuming that the wire end should be the bit that attaches to the head of the sail such that when the sail is hoisted the rope/wire has been pulled through to the winch so that halyard stretch is minimised while the sail is up and the rope end (easier on the hands whilst hauling it up) is the tail?

Again maybe I have misinterpreted something that should be obvious (it's been known to happen).

On a related note - If you are using Dyneema rope for a halyard is it still necessary to have the wire spliced onto the end? I thought the attraction of the new ropes like Dyneema was that they negated the need for this and therefore saved on weight aloft?

See Len76 - I've been sailing all my life and still learning

I think Cisco is suggesting you discard with the wire/rope combos and eliminate the wire and the need for splicing altogether. Synthetic technology has progressed to the point where there are a range of synthetics to suit every budget and need from no expensive spared max racing performance to relaxed long cruising. So ditch the wire. I did. Save the trouble of splicing a rope end to a wire and eliminate the nuisance of slack wires flapping and marking the mast.

Cisco is correct in that i want to replace a wire/rope halyard with a full dyneema halyard.

The reason i thought i couldnt do it his way is because of a stopper that prevent me from pulling the rope through once the rope reaches the top and i didnt think the thick rope would fit in the sheave for 4mm wire.

I will see if i can remove the stopper next time i'm down there lol, seems so simple now haha :P

Cheers Cisco

And this is why I dig this site.
You learn something new and useful everyday (some good days every 2 hours).

nswsailor said..

LordRumpunc said..

I'm also about to replace the rope/wire combination on my Top Hat Stonedpirate and we are pretty sure that we will have to replace the blocks. sheaves.

Planning to do this early in Jan 2014 and will report result on the Top Hat site; www.tophatyachts.com

There fixed it for ya.

Thanks Cisco,

Seems my Mk 1 Top Hat may need new SHEAVES but stonedpirates Mk 2, or was it a 3, should be OK!