Internal Halyard Exit

[Emerald]

Just a quick sanity check here before I make a hole I regret later. I admit I am probably way overthinking this. I have an unused mast head sheave on the aft port side I'd like to use for a topping lift. The starboard aft sheave currently has the main halyard on it. This exits the mast forward of the mast's centerline on the starboard side. I am looking at running the topping lift over the port aft masthead sheave and having it also exit on the starboard side, but aft of the mast centerline and several feet lower than the existing halyard. My concern is if I'm asking for trouble from crossing over from port to starboard with this new line. I am trying not to exit from the port side as I already have genoa and staysail halyards exiting on that side, and as I peer into the exit for the staysail halyard, I can see that my radar cable has migrated to port inside of the mast. This all has sent me to looking at the starboard side for the exit. Another plus I see with exiting it on the starboard side is that all mainsail controls will stay to starboard and all headsail controls stay to port, which seems to make sense.

As I write this, I think it's nothing that canned bacon and cheap beer and a sharp drill bit can't solve

 

[Seth]

Should be fine

We do this kind of thing all the time. For example on racing boats (even PHRF boats like an E-38, Beneteau, etc.) it is very common to take the port spinnaker halyard (which exits on the port side from the factory)and swap exits with the std spin halyard. This way, when you do a typical spin hoist from the port side (the normal port weather mark rounding), the halyard exits on the stb side so it can be hoisted from the weather side-keeping crew weight where it needs to be.

So, we have the spinny halyards crossed in the mast with no issues...

Cheers

 

[Emerald]

Thanks for the response. It seemed fine, but also worth checking.

 

[Seth]

Sure...

Enjoy