Preventing Sensor Line and Halyard Cleat Entanglement

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Here is a simple solution to keeping your sensor lines from catching on the mast's haylard cleat. Modification by Dean Lucko #41.

Photo of Karl Burkhardt who I sailed with for 11 years on his 37 foot racing sloop in Lake Erie. If you look right above Karl's left elbow (his left / not yours) you will see a pad-eye riveted to the mast. Use this as a guide for your sensor line, and it will not get caught on the main halyard cleat on the opposite side of the mast (outward).

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I don't like Dean's approach, as I feel that the solution to the problem is altering the offending cleat, not adding more hardware to yank the sensor line in the other direction, deviating it from its normal path. So I started by changing the stock big plastic horn cleat to a cleaner Clamcleat. Better - it still hung up the sensor line, but less often, and when it did it would come loose on its own more often:

But that's still not good enough, and since the Clamcleat is probably the lowest- and smoothest-profile surface-mount cleat available, we have to look at other elements of the cause. I think it's the location, which at 38" (45%) above where the sensor retract line exits the beam and 46" (55%) below the sensor retract block, is pretty much where the sensor line whips to maximum amplitude. So I'm going to lower the cleat. That's going to put it on the lower mast section, but since I leave my masts assembled for transport, it won't be a problem. Pictures asap. --Jonathan 05:07, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

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As a simple and last resort to provide some resistance to the SHUL (Sensor Hold Up Line) getting tangled on the halyard cleat, short of duct taping over it after all rigged, wrap the wire around the horns, pass the bungee thru the thimble and hook bungee over top horn as shown below. NOTE: Mast is horizontal on trailer for this example. --Factory Guy 17:45, 27 May 2010 (UTC)