YATES CUSTOM RIGGING

We have been a manufacturer and supplier of Wire to Rope Halyards for over 40 years. Our customers include many marine supply outlets, sailmakers and rope makers in Canada plus we have a loyal following of retail customers that we have built up over the years.

We build new Wire to Rope Halyards and Furling Lines using type 304 stainless wire and low stretch braid tails. We have wire sizes from 3/32 to 1/4 dia. and we stock rope in various tracer colours from 1/4 to 5/8. To speed up delivery we have a stock of pre-made halyards with longer tails to fit most standard boats with winches back on the cabin top.

We have some solid colours in 5/16 and 3/8 for tails on furling lines and smaller halyards. We can also do repairs like new tails on your own wire or make a splice using customer supplied material.

If you have a special requirement or a problem with your halyards we would be glad to advise. Many sailors have a problem with "meathooks" in halyard wire caused by the wire moving across stainless steel guides at the masthead or by riding across stainless wearbars at the exit boxes. The use of galvanized wire instead of stainless steel should be considered. Many sailors that have switched to hi-tect materials for halyards have once again replaced them with new wire to rope halyards like the originals because of durability and lower price.

We also carry a limited amount of spectra/dynema in small diameters for halyards with pigtails. We developed over twenty years ago a special core splice for hi-tect materials like kevlar and vectran that is now used by others in the marine industry.

Our Wire to Rope halyards have been tested by experienced sailors in both club races and in long distance ocean races throughout North America. Cruising boats using Yates Custom Rigging Wire to Rope Halyards have made many ocean crossings. Today we are just renewing many original halyards on production boats that we made over 20 years ago.

We have done random strength testing on our halyards over the years and we have always seen more than 80% of breaking strength of the wire. Sometimes we have seen 3700# wire break at more than 3400#. We make all halyards as if we were using them to go aloft ourselves. The strength is directly affected by the amount of taper thus the reason for the longer splice on the outside. Most wire to rope halyards today have to take heavy sailing loads with the wire cut short to use modern rope clutches. Having wire on the winch nearly disappeared when we started using braided rope for tails.

REPLACEMENT LIFELINES FOR SAILBOATS

We also have a motorized Kearney Swaging machine and have the capacity to do "renew" on lifelines. We carry Plastic Coated type 316 wire, colour white only, in 1/8 x 1/4 and 3/16 x 5/16 sizes and have stock of most parts and access to more studs and fittings so we can re use many parts that you have on your old lifelines. This machine is portable and we can go to your boat at dockside for local people needing replacements in our area. We have custom made thousands of sets of new and replacement lifelines on sailboats over the past 40 years. We can supply you with instructions on how to measure your boat for replacement lifelines or just to copy the old ones using new wire and swage studs where possible for the turnbuckles and other parts.

We also do splicing for the local fishing industry like end to end splicing on seine purse lines and heavy marine double braid from 3/4 to 2 1/4 inch diameter.