OK. It finally happened in a big blow...but after the race. My main halyard went flying up to the mast crane. The good news is that it has a soft shackle that was closed, so it's clearly visible and the entire halyard has not slipped down into the mast.

My thoughts are to go up the jib halyard in a climber's bosun chair and then use an 11' boat hook with a section of a clothes hanger taped to the end of the boat hook. I've bent a small hook into the end of the clothes hanger. My hope is to use the hook to catch the loop of the soft shackle.

Anyone else solved this problem in some way?

Bob Rude
#357
Mmmmm

I lost the entire halyard and tied up next to a boat with a taller mast. Winched the two boats towards each other and went up the mast on the other boat. Then fished a messenger line and weights over the sheave to get the new halyard run.

You won't have to go to that extreme, but if Mark ever gets Nemesis splashed, maybe you could go up the mast on Nemesis and reach over to grab your halyard!

Problem solved. Here's how we did it.

Found an extendable boat hook. It extended to a total of 11 feet. I then took a metal coat hanger, cut it and straightened it. I put a small hook at either end. The entire coat hanger was then duct taped to the end of the boathook. One of the hooks was inserted into the soft shackle loop which was jammed at the crane at the top of the mast. The other loop kept the coat hanger from being pulled away from the duct tape on the boat hook. It worked like a charm. I'm now keeping the boat hook and the coat hanger aboard, ready for the next call.

Bob,

You should have been an engineer to come up with such a creative solution.

Hi I'm currently trying to run a new line and cannot seem to drop anything in. Was it difficult to run a fresh line?