What I did on a G cat we got was to cut the halyard about 2 feet above the
cleat when the sail is raised and tie the resulting cut ends to opposite
ends of a becket block.. After raising the sail, loop the halyard under the
cleat (or you could mount a cheek block below the cleat to thread the
halyard thru) back up thru the becket block and now you have 3:1 purchase,
less friction. Cleat the halyard and you are done. This also reduces the
loose halyard tail.
Fine tuning details: The location of the becket block will restrict how far
down the halyard shackel will go, so depending on how low you want the head
of the sail to be when lowered, you can adjust the cut. Having the "cut"
higher will "waste" more halyard tail when the sail is raised.
If the tail doesn't have to be threaded thru the lower turning "block" you
can leave the tail permanently threaded thru the becket block. When the sail
is raised, just pull some slack from the loop, and hook it under the cleat
or whatever.
I think Herreshoff used this system a lot.
I hope I've made this clear enough.

"Shaun Van Poecke" wrote in message
...
Hi All,
I have a 16' beach cat and the halyards are a source of bother for me.
Like most of the beach cats Ive owned the method of tensioning the
halyards is less than ideal. There are of course no winches. The only
thing there is, is 2 horn cleats; one for main and one for jib.

Its not so bad on this cat since there is a mast top halyard lock for the
main, then luff tension is adjusted by downhall, but for the jib it's
another story. It is very hard to get enough tension on that jib halyard,
I try the usual method of putting a half turn around the horn clean then
pulling out on the halyard (above the cleat) while trying to retension the
tail. By this method i can bootstrap my way to some reasonable tension,
but if the wind is blowing hard it's only a matter of time till that horn
cleat slacks off a little. It really doesnt take much loss in tension to
have the jib luff up there flapping in the wind.

How do people solve this problem generally? Whats the best method to get
some purchase up here so i can retension while on the water? i was
thinking maybe 4:1 or better yet 8:1, but hopefully something simple and
lockable.... maybe with a cam cleat rather than a horn cleat?

Thanks,
Shaun