[Bluto]

My wire halyards will be 8 yrs old next month. The 5 year guarantee against corrosion has past. They are an unpleasant brown colour now. Otherwise they seem fine. Any tips on how to brighten them up or should I replace?
Thanks tony

 

[RichH]

If your wire-tope halyards arent showing broken strands (meat hooks) AND you attach the halyard with BALL CLEATS (a series of small balls that are pressed/swaged onto the wire and which attach to the mast with ramped and 'toothed finger jaws' or a ramped 'ball cleat') then the best is replace the halyard with 100% LOW STRETCH polymer line and also change the masthead sheave with a single groove rope sheave, also replace the sliding gooseneck at the same time for a non-sliding gooseneck.

If you ARE using ball cleats and swaged balls on the wire halyard .... live with it until it breaks. If you're racing this boat, nothing is as precise for halyard tension as the old-fashioned wire-rope halyard system using ball cleats and swaged balls on the 'wire': you use the ball cleat system for 'maximum hoist' and use the sliding gooseneck to obtain the proper 'luff tension' / (dacron) sail shaping.
Nothing is comparable to this old system for 'shaping' dacron sails. Use it until it fails, and only then replace it with 'modern' - IMO.

 

[overbored]

if it is stainless steel wire then Spotless Stainless will clean them up and passivate the stainless

 

[RichH]

if it is stainless steel wire then Spotless Stainless will clean them up and passivate the stainless

Good idea. ..... and then occasionally spray on "Boeshield™" to retard the subsequent corrosion in the 'terminals', etc.
Boeshield T-9 Lubricant

 

[Stumble]

There are still wire halyards?

 

[RichH]

Sure there are .... ball cleats on wire halyards are exponentially more precise vs. ANY other halyard tensioning method. Still used and found on the majority of ILYA scow classes and other 'hot' (gonads to the wall) planing classes for that very reason; ice boats too. Reason is: you cant swage a ball onto dyneema.

Such is also done with boats set up to 'rake the mast on the fly' wherein the forestay terminates into a ball to wire connection and that is lead to a Harken type 'magic box' to adjust the forestay length (and to 'help' with dynamic mast bend) .... all while 'sailing'. Swaged balls and ball cleats simply cannot be duplicated with dyneema, and other low stretch hi-tech polymers, especially if the wire-rope halyards, forestay tail ends (dyneema luffed jibs), etc. are run 'inside' the mast.

 

[Stumble]

Rich,

That's why sailboats use halyard locks.

 

[RichH]

I have halyard locks, but still PREFER the old time wire-rope with multiple swaged balls and ball cleats - bombproof, cant possibly slip, cant be inadvertantly opened .... and simple as hell.
Hell, one boat that I just got rid of had the ball cleat near the mast top on a rotating mast .... no halyard stretch at all as once set into the ball cleat there only remained ~2 feet of wire being under elastic strain ... very precise!!!!!
I dont know of many who would put a halyard lock at near the top of a mast, .... unless you have an aggressive and agreeable bowman.
Calculate all the elastic halyard strain you get even with 'tech' halyards, and see what 'stretch' you get under a full winched-up or sail/wind load. ;-)

 

[zz4gta]

I dont know of many who would put a halyard lock at near the top of a mast, .... unless you have an aggressive and agreeable bowman.

All modern race boats with high halyard loads. They use halyard locks with remote release triggers.