Theis,

Your diagnostic skills are near perfection.

I removed the forward hatch today, so that I could lower the mast an additional foot or so using my tabernacle rig. I then accessed the masthead by step-ladder from the dock. Although an earlier attempt to pull the halyard through the sheave yesterday under tension demonstrated that the sheave was not moving, today with the masthead a few feet closer top me, I was able to get the sheave to move by pushing on it with a screwdriver. I made one revolution of the sheave and inspected the sheave as I went. .I could see no areas of excessive wear, although the sheave is scarred by the wire halyard that has been running through it for who knows how many years.

Instead of WD 40, I used a product called Corrosion X. It is messy stuff, but I freed my tiller head/Pepsi can shim/ assembly with the product, so I applied liberal doses of corrosion X to the masthead sheave. In short time, I was able to turn the sheave freely. I applied the product about four times or a thirty-minute period, and each time the sheave moved more easily, until I was satisfied with the motion, and the halyard under tension when pulled through the sheave caused the sheave to move.

Incidentally I used the same product with some bronze wool to clean the corrosion off the masthead upper shroud tangs, and the upper portion of the shrouds. I also used Corrosion X to clean the metal parts of the jib halyard block, which appears to be in good shape.

I will follow your suggestion and use lithium grease on the main halyard masthead sheave.

After I raised the mast again, the sheave worked freely, and raising the main was much easier. (No more feeling of pulling wire against fixed metal, and much less resistance to raising the main than there was before.) So you are absolutely correct. I was not dealing with a parts failure, but only with the effect of corrosion.

Although I have owned my boat since September 5, 2001, I spent he past year restoring the decks, hull/deck seam/ gelcoat on the toe rails and cockpitm restoring the interior, and effecting rigging changes related to the tabernacle. Although I asked a rigger to inspect my rig, as I said earlier, I don't believe that he ever did in the eight months I that he took to finish his work to his satisfaction because he billed me only for his work on the backstay and backstay chain plate. A reasonable charge, but not inclusive of the inspection that I requested. In any case, today I got a fairly close look at the masthead, and things look pretty good up there. I will probably drop the mast next spring when I haul the boat, repaint the mast and do a complete review of the attached hardware and rigging. Incidentally, at some time in the past someone re-rigged my boat since it has Norseman fittings on the wire. It was not until Labor Day this year that I finally had the motor serviced and installed. My first sail in Augustine was on Labor Day, so I am still discovering things, some of which like the subject sheave give me cause to pause.

As you noted, the running rigging is not original. There is no way that the eye on the jib halyard will go though the block. I am sure that a rope to wire splice would. The wire on my boat is too long in any case. It takes four wraps of wire around the jib halyard winch with the 90% or 110% jibs raised, or you would be wrapping wire around the jib halyard cleat. I appreciate your offer of a joint purchase of wire/rope halyards, but instead I have decided to go with Stayset-X and do straight rope halyards as recommended elsewhere in the forum. It appears to me that both the jib and main halyard sheaves will accommodate 3/8 inch rope as per the original specification, and probably half inch, which I would prefer.

Your suggestions on the main halyard sheave were of considerable assistance, and will be of even greater assistance later when I recondition the mast. The paint currently on the mast is apparently quite corrosion resistant, but has no resistance to UV light whatsoever, and is in the process of turning to a buff colored dust that settles down upon and stains my mainsail cover.

So thanks for your response. As a result of an anti-corrosion product, I was once again able to go for a sail tonight when I finished cleaning up my mess. The ocean was beautiful tonight. Augustine left three thirty foot sparkling blue wakes behind her, one at the surface from the OB motor, and two more (one on each side of the boat) from the rudder and keel. I could lie on the lazarette hatch and see the sparkling blue light swirling from the rudder beneath the transom. The Milky Way overhead, the hovering midnight-black pelicans, and the sea lions running straight for the boat in imitation of torpedoes and glowing with bioluminescence were a spectacle to behold. It was great to be able to lie back in the cockpit with the tiller in my hand and stare up at the Milky Way as pelicans hovered overhead and Augustine made her way southeast trailing a wake in perfect imitation of the stars above. Thanks for your post on this subject. At 11:00 PM tonight at the end of the sail, the main dropped down it's track like a rock. Corrosion X is great stuff. Now for the lithium grease.