Boat Tip
Here’s an article from the Snake Bytes Wayback Machine
Doing the Twist Was Hip In The 60s, Twisting Halyards In The 10s Isn’t
While the skippers gravitate to their own post-race conversations, crewmembers do the same. One question popping-up repeatedly is “why is the spinnaker so hard to hoist and drop.” There are lots of logical answers, but one reason may be that in taking apart/reassembling the mast sections, the halyards may have become twisted around each other. What’s the solution? Viper Bytes went to Rondar Raceboats’ Paul Young for a solution. Paul submitted the following:
The Viper mast as supplied is rigged at Superspars, and they have a sequence that they rig the halyards in to ensure that they are not twisted when first put in, they can also sight up and down the mast through the end caps to check.
So if you want to check the halyards, and they are factory fit items, then you can lay the mast down, rotate each half until you think that they should be straight, then remove the head sheave by undoing the single screw in the front of the mast then pull the cap off, and the butt cap by undoing the three machine screws tapped in at the base. (These require a degree of effort to undo usually).
Once you can sight down the mast, separate the two halves, and leave a 6″ gap in the middle then sight along the mast. With the gap in the middle, light can enter and the halyards are relatively easy to see. You may see a twist in either half of the mast or even both in an extreme case. If they are not twisted, then simply reassemble the mast sheave and butt.
If they are twisted then try rotating the relevant half until they are running straight and then reassemble the mast. If they will not untwist, then you will need to strip two out of three halyards out of the affected half of the mast and reeve them through again. My preferred option is to leave the main halyard in and to strip out the jib and spinnaker halyard.
With the mast down to one halyard, pull it tight and tie each end off so it cannot get anything else twisted around it.
If the top half is affected, then remove the jib and spinnaker halyard sheaves and use a light wire such as your lower shroud to pass through the sheave hole and down the mast to the split. Tape each halyard on and pull through, then check by sighting up and down the mast that they are now untwisted and reassemble the mast.
If the bottom half is affected simply feed the lower shroud through the relevant exit hole at the base, and up the mast to the split and carry out the same procedure.
Because the mast is in two pieces, this is actually a lot simpler to do than to describe.
Editor’s note: Once you know your halyards are clear, here’s a handy tip to prevent the two sections from twisting again. Take a 3-foot length of webbing material (like hiking strap webbing) and, before you separate the mast sections, tape the ends of the webbing securely to the mast by the split. Then, when you reassemble the mast, if the webbing is straight you’ll know you didn’t Twist Again…like you did last summer.
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