Cruising Outpost

if all goes as planned, I will be moving back on board Pretty Lucky soon. Maybe next weekend. I
I made me an owners manual, that has a lot of the tech stuff in it, including how many feet of rope I need to replace the running rigging, I will learn epoxy how to's, I pick up a battery in the morning, and I have a some ideas on how build very cheap LED cabin lights. that should keep me busy for a month.
I need to find out if you can replace the wire/rope halyards with all rope? also how do you get the track on the mast oiled up with out taking the mast down?
maybe I can really move the boat again soon. I gotta replace the fuel tank and I found an idea for a water tank that I will be able to afford soon, and I think I'll be able to get some epoxy supervision too.
I'm thinking if I could find a a place to put a tent up, like some ones back yard (I'll be polite and clean and will not burn the barn down..) that boat show is looking doable.

Whether or not you can replace the wire halyards with rope depends on the width of the sheaves in the mast. Some masts have very narrow sheaves that are meant for wire only, others have sheaves that are wide enough for rope with a narrow groove in the center for wire. These will work usually work with all rope halyards. If your wire halyards have a wire-to-rope splice and if you can pull the wire out to the point where the rope is running over the sheave, and the halyard still pulls easily back and forth without drag, you probably have the latter style sheaves and should be able to make the change.

Thanks Jim, I'll try and pull the rope / wire splice through and see what happens. I am thinking about what you just wrote, and I might have a plan if the all rope will not work at least in my head.. I might splice an eye in a wire cable and connect a rope, with a shackle to the eye. when its time to replace the rope and again it would be easier then trying to splice the wire and rope.
I wonder why would someone even splice it in the first place?

Back in the day, some boats were rigged with a nicropress eye at the rope end of the wire, then the rope tail was eye spliced thru the nicropress thimble. I sailed on a 1972 Ericson 32 that was rigged this way for several years back in the 70s. Nothing wrong with this, but the wire length needs to be carefully thought out, typically the jib halyard is the most critical.

You want the wire long enough so that you can get the sail all the way down and have enough wire length to fasten the halyard shackle to the pulpit. Since the nicropress thimble won't go over the masthead sheaves, the wire must be long enough to reach the pulpit while it is still at the masthead and over the sheaves.

Where is your jib halyard winch, on the mast? This was typical in the days boats were rigged this way. The wire halyard needs to be long enough to get 3 or 4 good turns of wire around the winch, or short enough that the wire stops just above the winch when the jib is fully hoisted, you don't want to wrap the nicropress thimble around the winch, that's asking for trouble.

Usually with masthead rigs and mast mounted winches the geometry works out that you will be wrapping the wire on the winch. So you pull the sail up off the winch till you get wire, then start taking wire turns around it.

Also if you do put the wire on the winch, the winch should be bronze/chrome, not aluminum, as the wire will eventually wear away the aluminum.

Thanks, I have not wrapped the wire around the winch yet. I sort of scared to do that for fear I might be doing something wrong. I think the winch is chrome plated bronze. it is mounted on the mast.
thanks for the help.

Bill, in a recent conversation at my boat club about motors, a fellow sailor friend who has an Ericson 33 said he has a complete and good running Atomic 4 in his locker at the club. Gary has no plans to sell the motor but when I mentioned that I knew someone who might need an Atomic 4, he said he would sell it for $600.00. JJD (Joe Dougan) knows exactly where the club is and if you're interested and if Joe is up this way (just north of Philly on the Delaware River) maybe you could work up a plan to score the motor.


Ron

that's a hell of good price. right now I don't have the money though.

As far as "greasing" the sail track.... Don't.

Use teflon or similar spray. Hit it as high as you can. Run the main up and down in increments. Repeat and repeat as you work your way up.

If the mast track takes a bolt rope its easy to clean. Take a 1 foot section of bolt rope. Connect the main halyard to the top and another line to the bottom of the 1 foot section.

Apply your cleaner and use the main halyard to pull this short section up the mast track. Then use the second line to pull it back down. Do it until you think the track is clean and then douse it in something like SailKote and drag it up and down a few times.

The track should be clean and as slick as you're gonna get it from the deck. You can do the same thing to the foils on a roller furling jib with a section of luff tape.

Angus

kewl deal, thanks. I'll try that and see if it works...the P.O. might have used heavy grease at one time.