Silencer

Two spaced halyard restraining devices that are fixed to spreaders attached to a sailboat's mast. The two spaced spreaders are horizontally disposed from and fixed to opposite sides of an interposed vertically disposed mast. The halyard restraining devices are identical and each is shaped like a U-shaped bracket having one leg fixed to a spreader while another outer leg is a longer leg with a rounded free end. Each restraining device has a legs joining bight portion with the opened side facing generally either towards the boat's bow or stern. The halyard or the like are pulled into engagement with the device's bight portion to restrain their movement towards the mast by placing them under increased tension. To accommodate two different common cross sectional types of spreaders, round or wing shaped, the outer opposite side bearing surfaces of the inner leg may be shaped differently to complement these two types of spreader's shapes thus allowing for their dual-use with two different shaped spreaders.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
On windy days it is common for suspended ropes on sailboats to slap against 
the mast and other exposed boat parts creating loud noises. One solution 
is to use rope or elastic cord to tie or retain the suspended noise 
causing rope away from the mast. Another solution to abate the noise is to 
have arms that extend horizontally from the vertical mast. Neither tubular 
shaped C members may extend from the arms or some kind of wing to engage 
the vertically suspended noise causing rope. With the present invention 
the horizontally disposed arms mounted to the mast have a hooked shaped 
members fixed to them that can retain the movement of the suspended noise 
causing rope to prevent the same from slapping against the vertical mast 
even under strong wind conditions all as will be described in detail 
hereafter. 
DESCRIPTION OF THE PRIOR ART 
Devices for that are used to restrain the movement of sailboat ropes or 
riggings are known. For example, in the Weghorn invention (U.S. Pat. No. 
3,996,873), a generally L-shaped clip is disclosed that is attached to the 
mast and is used to secure the halyards in a fixed position. 
The Vall patent (U.S. Pat. No. 4,157,073) discloses a halyard securing 
device that is made up of a plastic helix which can also secure a shroud 
or other securing lines within the helix. 
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,473,024 to Armstrong a self-locking device is disclosed 
that is positioned about standing rigging having mating tongue and grooves 
which upon engagement hold the device's two elements together in a locking 
condition. 
In the Woodcock reference (U.S. Pat. No. 5,495,818) a shroud slap stopping 
mechanism is disclosed having a halyard enclosing ring that is attached by 
a line to a shroud through a system of pulleys. 
The present invention relates to a halyard silencing device made up of two 
spaced spreader attached U-shaped devices whose opened bights portions 
face generally towards the sailboat's bow and stern all as more fully set 
forth in this specification. 
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
This invention relates a sailboat's halyard silencing device which is used 
to retrain the movement of the halyards. 
It is the primary object of the present invention to provide for an 
improved halyard silencing device that is attached to oppose mast mounted 
spreaders. 
Another object is to provide for such a such a device having two U-shaped 
spreader mounted brackets whose opened bight portions face generally 
towards the bow and stern of the sailboat. 
These and other objects and advantages of the present invention will become 
apparent to readers from a consideration of the ensuing description and 
the accompanying drawings.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT 
FIG. 1 is a side perspective view of the invention's preferred embodiment 
showing how it is mounted on two opposite mast attached spreaders 1 and 3 
of a sailboat. Each spreader is generally horizontally disposed and fixed 
to opposite sides of the vertically disposed intervening mast 5. The lower 
end of the mast is vertically support by the underlying sailboat's deck 7. 
Extending vertically on both sides of the mast are two separate halyards 9 
and 11. It is the movement of these halyards against the mast 5 that the 
preferred embodiment of the invention seeks to restrain to thereby silence 
any noise caused by their slapping against the mast. The halyard 9 is 
fixed at its lower end 13 to the mast and at its upper end 15 to overhead 
mast structure 17. Similarly, the halyard 11 is attached to the overhead 
mast structure 17 at its top portion 19 while its lower end may be 
attached to lower mast end 21 adjacent the decking 7. All of the described 
structure of the mast, the halyards and their end supports and the two 
spreaders are conventional in design. 
Fixed to the outer surfaces of the two spreaders 1 and 3 and about 18 
inches outwardly from the center mast 5 are two preferred embodiments 23 
of the invention. The devices 23 consist of U-shaped brackets that are 
fixed on one of their respective legs to the spreader while the bight 
portion of the bracket engages the halyard in a restraining position to 
keep the halyard from slapping into the mast 5. 
FIG. 2 is a top view of the preferred embodiment of the device 23 used in 
FIG. 1. The spreader 1, shown in dotted line format, is located underneath 
the device 23 and is fixed thereto by two spaced screws 25 and 27, whose 
heads are shown, that extend through preformed spaced holes in the inner 
leg portion 29 of device 23. A bight portion 31 of device 23 attaches the 
two legs of the device together and faces towards the sailboat's bow (see 
arrow) such that the opened part of the U-shaped device is facing in the 
same direction. The halyard 9 is shown in cross sectional dotted line 
format as it engages the device's bight portion 31 when the halyard is 
subjected to a minimum amount of end tension. The free end 33 of the outer 
leg 35 is longer than inner leg 29, and extends closer to the ship's bow 
and has a round end so as not to damage the bight insertable halyard 
should it bear against leg's 35 end. 
The other device 23 on spreader 3 would have the same construction as that 
shown in FIG. 2 but would have its bight portion facing towards the 
sailboat's stern. The halyard 11 would also engage the device's bight 
portion 31 and be restrained from movement at the point of engagement 
towards the mast 5. 
The two horizontally disposed spreaders 1 and 3 have cross sectional 
configurations that are either tubular or round or they may be configured 
like the shape of an airplane's wing in cross section. To accommodate 
these two different possible cross sectional configurations for the 
spreaders, the device's inner leg 29 has its outer engaging spreader 
surfaces shaped to lie flush against the outer surface of the spreader 
regardless of which spreader cross sectional configuration is present. 
FIG. 3 is a end view of the preferred embodiment of the device used in FIG. 
1 looking toward the boat's mast as indicated by the arrow in FIG. 1 . 
Shown in dotted line format are the two generally available cross 
sectional configurations 3 and 3' for the spreaders. Normally either one 
or the other of the spreader configurations would be used at the same time 
and not both configurations. Thus, each of the spreaders 1 and 3 would 
have the same cross sectional configurations whether round or winged, 
To accommodate the two different types of possible configurations for the 
spreaders, the two opposite outer surfaces of the leg 29 that may bear 
against the spreader's surface are shaped differently. Thus, if the cross 
sectional configuration for the spreader were round as shown by 3, the 
surface 37 of leg 29 that bears against it would have a round 
complementary shape. Similarly, if the spreader has a winged shaped cross 
sectional configuration, like in 3', the leg 29 has an outer surface 39 
that bears against that is wing shaped to complement the spreader's wing 
shape. In this manner regardless of which spreader cross sectional 
configuration is available, round or winged, the leg 29 may lie flush 
against the spreader and complement its outer surface in shape. Extending 
completely through the height of leg 29 are two spaced through holes one 
for each of the screws 25 and 27. One of these identical through holes 41 
is shown in FIG. 3 having two larger diameter bores 43 and 45 at their 
opened ends. This allows headed screws to be inserted from either of the 
leg's two opposite surfaces 37 or 39 into the spreader to fix the device 
23 to the spreader. By flipping over the device 23, depending on the cross 
sectional shape of the spreader, the two devices can each be positioned 
and fixed to the spreaders on opposite sides of the mast 5 with their two 
respective opened ends facing generally towards the bow and stern of the 
sailboat. 
In use, a user would grasp one of the halyards along its length and pull it 
away from the mast until it could engage with the opened bight of the two 
fixed devices 23 one at a time. This would further tension the halyards 9 
and 11 to restrain their movement toward the center intervening mast 5 to 
silence any slapping sound against the mast. 
Since the devices 23 will be used outdoors and exposed to a considerable 
amount of moisture, they should be made of a moisture resistant material 
such as molded plastic or white nylon ultraviolet resistant material. 
Normally they would be molded as a one piece unitary structure and be 
screwed with four stainless steel screws into the two spreaders about 18 
inches from the mast. In one working embodiment, the longer leg 35 had an 
overall length of 3 and 1/8 inches, the bight had a width of 1 inch and 
the shorter inner leg had an overall length of 2 inches. The height or 
thickness of the leg 35 (see FIG. 3) was about 3/4 of an inch while the 
height or thickness of inner leg 29 was about 1/2 of an inch. Clearly, 
other dimensions may be used depending on the cross sections of the 
halyards or other lines to be restrained, the dimensions of the spreaders 
and the amount of resistance needed to restrain the halyards from slapping 
into the mast. 
Although the preferred embodiment of the present invention and the method 
of using the same has been described in the foregoing specification with 
considerable details, it is to be understood that modifications may be 
made to the invention which do not exceed the scope of the appended claims 
and modified forms of the present invention done by others skilled in the 
art to which the invention pertains will be considered infringements of 
this invention when those modified forms fall within the claimed scope of 
this invention.