Main halyard

[Woody1199]

Can anyone please share their technique to securing the main halyard once the main is fully hoisted. We are finding that the main will drop down somewhat from a full hoist over the race using only the horn cleat at the mast base. Some type of tensioner similar to the jib halyard would be ideal.

[trend.ab]

We are using a similar tensioner as for the jib, as per Kasparek from Australia.
We switched the jib and main halyard exit of the mastbase and just fixed the main tensioner to one of the hiking strap fixation points below the gennaker bag.

[kpike]

Main halyard stretch is annoying. I made a new main halyard where the first 28' is Vectran and the rest is dyneema. The Vectran cinches around the horn. The halyard stretch is much less and I no longer bottom out on the main downhaul. I was also worried about using a shackle with the Vectran and so I replaced the shackle with a small block.

[Christian H Jensen]

I' like many many others, I'm sure, was really fed up with the uncovered 3mm dyneema halyard - royal PITA to deal with in many respects - tangles like a bitch, tough to tie so it doesn't slip.

I replaced it with a 5 mm doublebraid that I stripped for the portion sitting in the mast when hoisted.  The core is 4 mm SK 99 Dyneema.  World of difference - the line doesn't tangle and it is so easy to cleat off when hoisted.  I also replaced the halyard shackle with a thimble with a sewn on soft shackle - works a charm.  I used the smalles thimble I could find and the total length of the unit is about the same as the shackle typically used.

[kpike]

Elegant solution. I like the way you solved the ring retention problem.  The block I mentioned above has been working out with the vectran.
I will make a 5mm double braid with dyneema 99 core to compare with the vectran MH.