I recently attended the Annapolis Sailboat Show, and got a free rigging inspection from Chesapeake Rigging.
The inspection was done this past Tuesday, and I had a long talk with the rigger about my future plans
for pulling the stick to do repairs and upgrades.
One of the things he suggested that I hadn't been considering was conversion to internal halyards.
He had an interesting point that I had not thought about. With the P323's original external halyards,
there are two sheaves per halyard at the mast head, for a total of four. When converting to internal
halyards, only one sheave per halyard is needed. As a result, there is the possibility of rigging two
extra halyards, one fore and one aft! This sounds like a great safety idea in case of a jammed halyard.
In addition, the extra aft halyard can be used as a topping lift, which is vastly superior to the
clumsy jam-cleat block on the end of the boom, as it can be adjusted easily from the mast.
I was wondering if anyone here had converted to internal halyards, and what experiences,
pro and con, they have had. My first thoughts were on chafing, both on the rope
and on the mast wiring. And is there any significant extra drag?