mast hardware placement

Hi, Im in the process of changing out a mast on my 16. The one that came with the boat had a slight bend in it a few feet down from the mast tang. It appears to me that the mast may have been dropped by the previous owner. Ive found a used mast that i need to transfer the mast head from my old mast. Ive found that the halyard guides arent on the new mast. However there are holes in the new mast that are much lower than where my halyard guides are now.
Is there a recommended placement guide as to where these "halyard grips" should be placed for maximum efficiency?
the old mast they were placed approx 27 inches down from the tang. the new mast has holes drilled aprrox 68 inches from the tang. One side are drilled "horozontally" the other side "vertically", but the same general distance from the tang. Is it possible that these holes my have been used for another purpose? Thanks Neal

Took me a minute to figure out you were talking about the jib halyard . . .

I haven't used a jib halyard guide since I went to the Aussie system, but in general, you want the guide to be at about the height of the top jib batten. On almost all older Hobie 16 masts, you'll have marks on the mast where the battens scrape across in a tack, so it's pretty easy to determine where the guide should be.

The problem with jib halyard guides is that they apply a rotational force on the mast. The mast will preferentially rotate to port (starboard tack). That can be a problem when tacking or sailing on port tack downwind in light air.

The higher the guide / higher the tension on the jib halyard, the worse that rotational force will be.

I have the all-aluminum black mast with the old style jib halyard/downhaul block and use a jib halyard grip located on the port side of the mast where the top jib batten would rub the mast as Matt described.

I also have a main halyard grip (located a similar height as the jib halyard, but closer to the mast's luff track).

On my mast, the main's downhaul cleat (which is located on the back of the mast in the luff track) is located just above the starboard side cleat for the main halyard.

After hooking the slug on the main halyard at the top of the mast, I pass the slack main halyard around the starboard shroud and then snuggly tie it off on the main halyard's cleat on the starboard side of the mast.
Then after tying off the 3:1 downhaul for the main on the downhaul cleat, I take the last foot of the downhaul rope and loop it around the tied off main halyard and pull the main halyard back tight against the downhaul cleat and finish tying it off on the downhaul cleat. This pulls the main halyard further back toward the mast's luff track and makes it less likely to snag the jib batten ends. This only works if the main's downhaul cleat is higher than the main's halyard cleat. The main's downhaul cleat is in the luff track, so it can be repositioned without having to install new rivets.

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Tim
84 H16
82 H16
87 H14T
Tortola Sails: 115222
Blue Prism Sails: 88863
Clearwater, FL