Skied halyards: all is not lost

Whether it’s the first race of the season or the last, the unexpected will happen, but when the halyard skies, not all is lost. Sailing World’s Jonathan McKee and his teammates had a few halyard hiccups before the season’s first race, but their perseverance saved the twilight.

The first twilight race of the year is a special time. After thinking about sailing and racing all winter long, we finally get to go evening racing again. My wife, Libby, has a J/70 that she races on Lake Washington, and sometimes I get to tag along. Our first Wednesday-night outing was the start of her season, and excitement was high.

However, when we arrive at the boat and start rigging, we discover a major issue: There is no tail to the jib halyard. The thin rope used to hoist the jib is lost inside the mast and nowhere to be seen. There is only one approach to fixing this problem: We’ll have to pull out the halyard from the top of the rig, rerun it down inside the mast, and then fish it out through the narrow halyard exit slot in the mast wall. Fortunately, we have more than an hour until the start, so we are confident that we can make it happen and not miss a thing. We’re darn well going to try anyway, because we really don’t want to miss the season opener.

One of Libby’s crew is 20-year-old Esther Goodell. She is smart, capable, eager and fearless. As I am preparing to get hoisted aloft on a fender repurposed as a bosun’s chair, Goodell volunteers to go up instead. Let’s see, her 110 pounds or my 180 pounds? – Full story