{"id":82685,"date":"2025-10-20T11:28:18","date_gmt":"2025-10-20T15:28:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/?p=82685"},"modified":"2025-10-20T11:28:20","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T15:28:20","slug":"recovering-skied-halyards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/how-to\/recovering-skied-halyards\/","title":{"rendered":"Recovering Skied Halyards: Lessons From the Racecourse"},"content":{"rendered":"\n        <section class=\"hydra-container\">\n\n\t\t\t                <div class=\"hydra-canvas\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/DSC08071-1024x768.jpg\" class=\"hydra-image disable-lazyload\" alt=\"Sailboats racing on Lake Washington\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1400px) 100vw, 1400px\" fetchpriority=\"high\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/DSC08071-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/DSC08071-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/DSC08071-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/DSC08071-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/DSC08071.jpg 2000w\" \/>                <\/div>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n            <figcaption class=\"caption margin_top_xs full border_1 hydra-figcaption\">\n                <span class=\"hydra-image-caption\">The author and his teammates (Sail No. 1032) had\u00a0a few halyard hiccups before the season\u2019s first race, but their perseverance saved the twilight.<\/span>\n                <span class=\"article_image_credit italic margin_right_xs\">Dennis Pearce<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\t            <\/figcaption>\n        <\/section>\n\t\t\n\n\n<p>The first twilight race of the year is a special time. After thinking about sailing and racing all winter long, we finally get to go \u00adevening racing again. My wife, Libby, has a J\/70 that she races on Lake Washington, and sometimes I get to tag along. Our first Wednesday-night outing was the start of her season, and excitement was high.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<iframe id=\"x8aa2rgac1\" src=\"https:\/\/Sailingworld.dragonforms.com\/x8aa2rgac1\" scrolling=\"no\" style=\"width:100%;height:165px;border:none;overflow:hidden;\"><\/iframe>\n\n\n\n<p>However, when we arrive at the boat and start rigging, we discover a major issue: There is no tail to the jib halyard. The thin rope used to hoist the jib is lost inside the mast and nowhere to be seen. There is only one approach to fixing this problem: We\u2019ll have to pull out the halyard from the top of the rig, rerun it down inside the mast, and then fish it out through the narrow halyard exit slot in the mast wall. Fortunately, we have more than an hour until the start, so we are confident that we can make it happen and not miss a thing. We\u2019re darn well going to try anyway, because we really don\u2019t want to miss the season opener.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One of Libby\u2019s crew is 20-year-old Esther Goodell. She is smart, capable, eager and fearless. As I am preparing to get hoisted aloft on a fender repurposed as a bosun\u2019s chair, Goodell volunteers to go up instead. Let\u2019s see\u2026her 110 pounds or my 180 pounds?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yeah, sending Goodell up is a much better idea. So, we haul her to the hounds carrying a weighted string to feed into the mast. After a couple of attempts and some fiddling with it, she finally gets the string to drop all the way down. Then comes too many unsuccessful attempts to fish the string out of the slot, until Libby finally snags it with a hook and pulls it out. Success! We are definitely making the start.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Not so fast, cowboy. As we try to pull the halyard through, the messenger becomes disconnected, and we are back to where we started. We have to go through the whole process again, but soon enough, we have a working halyard, and finally we can lower Goodell to the deck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sails go up, and we\u2019re off the dock with 20 minutes to spare. Spirits are high until we go for our practice spinnaker set. The halyard skies to the top of the mast, and the spinnaker falls into the water. In our haste to get going, we had tied a poor knot, and now our kite halyard is at the top of the mast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After a brief discussion of our options, we head back to the dock to try to tip over the boat and recover the halyard. I have seen this done with other J\/70s, but I\u2019ve never done it myself. Turns out, it\u2019s an exciting exercise but perfectly doable. We start pulling the boat over onto its side using the main halyard and pulling on the shrouds. It takes the full weight of the crew pulling like crazy until we get it far enough over to grab the runaway halyard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With the mainsail back up, we\u2019re in business and hustling to get out to the racecourse. But by now we\u2019ve missed the first race of the night. Bummer, but we were good to go for the second and final race. We sail well and get a fifth place in the 27-boat fleet.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While our DNC and fifth-place scores might not seem that great, for Libby\u2019s team, it\u2019s a positive night. We\u2019ve worked together to overcome multiple challenges. It would have been easy to give up and say it was all too difficult, but we\u2019ve persevered, kept a positive attitude, and problem-solved our way to making a fun second race. It\u2019s amazing how adversity makes us stronger and brings a team closer together. The lessons for us are obvious: Think through solutions as a team, don\u2019t give up, and take your time when tying halyard knots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">A Skied Halyard Recovery Kit\u00a0<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>If you\u2019ve never accidentally sent a halyard to the top of the rig, congratulations. It\u2019ll happen eventually. Getting back into action requires the right tools at the ready. A few essentials in an onboard tool\u00a0kit, or in the dock box, are all you need. Also, to make the job easier, have a reeving splice in the tail end of every halyard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:25px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Length of small-diameter Dyneema that\u2019s<br>at least twice the mast height<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>6- to 12-inch section of bike chain<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Sewing kit with whipping twine<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Electrical tape<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Seizing wire to make a hook<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Bright, narrow-beam flashlight<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Whether it&#8217;s the first race of the season or the last, the unexpected will happen, but when the halyard skies, not all is lost.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":82686,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"BS_author_type":"BS_author_is_guest","BS_guest_author_name":"Jonathan McKee","BS_guest_author_url":"","hydra_display_date":"","hydra_display_updated":false,"_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":"","_yoast_wpseo_metadesc":"","_yoast_wpseo_title":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","arc_story_id":"","arc_website_url":"","custom_permalink":"","arc_subtype":"","arc_exclude_from_feeds":false,"sponsored":false,"sponsored_label":"Sponsored Content","sponsored_display_label":false,"sponsored_image":false,"post_right_rail":true,"post_right_rail_ad_1":true,"post_right_rail_ad_2":true,"post_right_rail_ad_3":false,"post_right_rail_ad_4":false,"post_right_rail_recirc":true,"fixed_anchor_ad":true,"post_top_ad":true,"post_off_ramp":true,"post_taboola":false,"labels":true,"apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":"","ad_settings_ads_on_this_page":true,"ad_settings_automatic_ad_injection_into_the_content":true,"ad_targeting":"","alternate_title_newsletter":"","alternate_content_newsletter":"","sponsored_url":"","social_share":true},"categories":[156],"tags":[2812,3003,259],"class_list":["post-82685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-how-to","tag-how-to-2","tag-print-summer-2025","tag-rigging"],"acf":[],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82685"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82685\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/82686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}