[capttb]

Being new to owning a boat that I can''t unstep mast on easily I''m a little worried about replacing halyards. My thought is I would "whip" or (couple clove hitches) a short, small diameter messenger line to the end (sail end), whip messenger to new line and pull back thru. I believe usual method is to butt tape the ends together but I don’t feel comfortable with that unless I was to sew a few stitches of stout thread between them also.
Old halyards have the shackles tied on with bowline on a bight, I plan to have lines made with hardware spliced on, that seems stronger and “neater” to me, am I missing something?