O'Day 23 halyard winch

[svey]

She came with a homemade furling genoa made with aluminium emt and coupling with some cylinder at the bottom. I must live with the system for the moment.

It works but I need to get more tension on the halyard to be able to point better (for the few time I race). The is a winch on the mast but the standard winch handle does not fit in it. It is more a snubbing winch with a pin preventing the winch to unravel once the tooth is engage. How can I get more tension on the halyard. I've tried loosening the back stay, tightening the halyard as much as I could, then tightening the back stay but I still can point very well. Would a back stay tensionner help? Can I get a special winch handle for that winch? Should I try to machine one so I could fit a rachet in there?

Tx for your help,

Yves

[Siamese]

Can you simply get rid of the roller furling and just use snaps to hank on the jib or genoa. We're just talking about an O'day 23 here, so that's no a lot of sail to handle. And I don't recall the 23 as having that big a rig on it. Then just keep the jib in a zipper bag on the bow (with the jib already hanked on and ready to go).

I'm surprised there's even a winch on the mast. We'll see what others say, but it seems like you should get all the halyard tension you need simply by giving it a good yank.

I'm not ready to assume your inability to point can be blamed on halyard tension. Do you know that your 23 isn't pointing as well as other O'day 23's?

[mstern]

The winch on the mast of my Oday 23 is on the starboard side, so it isn't much good for tightening the genny halyard, which is on the port side. In any case, the Oday 23 is not one of your more close-winded boats. Even with the centerboard down, she won't lie that close to the wind. if you are used to a boat that performs like a modern, fin keel model, the performance of the Oday 23 will likely disappoint you. As for your mast winch, I don't follow your description of the winch, so I can't offer any advice for a handle. The winch on the mast of my Oday 23 is the same winch as is in the cockpit for the jib sheets. They are small, standard (non-self-tailing) Lewmars. You can bet that there was a handle that fit your winch at one point; can you post a picture of the winch?

[Hartley18]

Originally Posted by svey

She came with a homemade furling genoa made with aluminium emt and coupling with some cylinder at the bottom. I must live with the system for the moment.

Yves, I'd second what Siamese said: Can you get rid of the furler altogether? A hanked-on headsail will point higher than a sagging one any day.

Originally Posted by svey

I've tried loosening the back stay, tightening the halyard as much as I could, then tightening the back stay but I still can point very well. Would a back stay tensionner help?

Ahhh.. don't do that - you'll break something. Backstay tensioners are used to set mast bend, not halyard tension.

If I understand you right, your genoa is sagging off the forestay and this is severely hampering your ability to go to windward. Correct?

If you must use the furler and have no way to haul up more on the halyard, I'd suggest tying a length of spectra or similar to the shackle on the base of the furler, running that back to a cockpit winch and pulling *down* on the headsail to tension it... at least until you find the winch handle.

Good luck!