We removed the shackle and spigot and formed a 5mm
dyneema strop between headboard and pulley. This allows the
head to rotate about 90 degrees each way, but not allow a 180+ twist, this takes side pressure off the pulley and also has a more dampening effect on the system vs s
steel. The only down side to this is that if you need to disconnect the
halyard from the
mainsail, you have to untie your strop, a shackle would obviously be much quicker. This is why I replaced the topping
lift with
dyneema, (a) as we use this to go up in the bosuns chair, (b) It can substitute as a main
halyard. Some say you should use the main halyard for the bosuns chair, the trouble is that you can not see the condition of the shackle at the top of the
mast till you get there.