How to tie a Halyard Knot
I had to replace my halyards on our day sailor this year.
What I thought would be a quick and easy job was a ½ day project. The original lines
that came off had the hardware spliced on the ends.
I bought an extra 6’ of line for both halyards so I could
splice the ends. Splicing is a skill that takes doing it regularly or often to
get good at. That’s why I got the extra line. I started with a piece of scrap
line, got the directions and the tools out and tried it. I gave up on my first
try after about 10 minutes.
After a cup of coffee and some encouragement from the dog
and cats I tried again on the other end of the scrap of line. The dog thought
it was great…He must have thought I was making him a pull toy. My second attempt was marginally better than
the first. On a scale of one to ten, my first try was a 1, and my second try was
a 1.25.
My wife said I should try on a piece of new line…it is more slippery
and that may be easier to do. With a last comment, she said, my first two tries
was as good as she had ever gotten, and that her X was the one that could
splice lines, but had left her the tools.
I thought that using new line could really make a difference
being more slippery; since where I had my problem was getting the line to slip
into itself. I tried a piece of new line. It was more slippery but it was also stiffer.
My next two tries rated a 1.75 and maybe a 1.85 with 10 being perfect. Now the
dog had two pull toys.
I got out another book that had splicing instructions and
how to tie knots in it and tried the instructions on splicing from it. The result
was a splice that I would rate at a 2.1. At this rate I figured I would need to
buy an extra 60’ of line to practice on. I had thoughts of asking my Wife’s X
if he could help, but that was only a thought I let blow away in the wind. If
he could do it, I should be able to do it. 8-)
I went back to the book. In the index was: How to tie a Halyard
knot.
The sun came out, the birds started to sing, and I knew I
could tie this knot: 8-) 8-) *-) *-) 8-) Yes!
Here is a Picture of how to do a halyard knot.
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