Halyard

A halyard is the line that hoists a sail or yard up the mast, named for the historical ‘haul yard’. Modern racing halyards are low-stretch high-modulus polyethylene such as Dyneema, because any stretch lets the sail’s luff sag and spoils its shape upwind. Each sail has its own halyard, main, jib, and spinnaker, run internally through the mast to a winch or clutch in the cockpit. Halyard tension is one of the primary controls of sail draft.