There are a lot of systems on the super yachts. One which has caused a bit of a headache is the captive winch for the main halyard. The winch is located under the galley floor in the bilge so working on it requires doubling yourself over and fitting in between pipes etc. Basically the main halyard wraps around the drum as the mainsail is hoisted. There is a load cell (see picture below) in one of the sheaves feeding the drum which ‘feels’ the pressure on the halyard telling the drum when to work and when not to. There is a ‘shuttle’ which runs from left to right as the halyard is hoisted loading the halyard around the drum in a tight coil. The halyard has to be the right length and diameter otherwise it fills the drum before the main is all the way up.

 

At the refit in New York they put on a new halyard which was a 1/8 inch larger diameter then what was specified – doesn’t sound like much however, this combined with the riggers making it a bit longer than the old one led to the halyard jamming on the captive winch. These things never happen when it is dead calm we were actually trying to reef the main as it had ‘jumped’ the captive winch after overfilling the drum and then shredded the cover. The main mandrel (in boom furling drum) stopped turning as it wasn’t getting feedback from the captive winch so the main had a pocket in it allowing the 25 knots of wind to catch it and slam the rig back and forth. I went up in the climbing harness on the spinnaker halyard taking with me the topping lift from the end of the boom (not easy to get to as the boom was swing around so much). I attached the topping lift to the head of the main (again not easy to hold on to the rig which I was being slammed against it) and removed the main halyard attaching a down haul to it so it could be cleared out of the way. We then had control of the mainsail however, the captive winch needed to be cleared so I spent a few hours in the bilge with a razor blade cutting away the damaged cover and unwinding the halyard from the winch.

 

On the trip from Auckland to Sydney again I spent some time in the bilge as the halyard is doubling over on itself as it is a little too long. However, we are now aware of the situation so can solve the problem before it becomes stuck and we shred a halyard. In Sydney I will be shortening the halyard and this should fix the issue.