I hate to say this guys but Harken hardware hasn't been in the last 5-10 years what it used to be. I was lucky enough to have recognized the early signs back in 2000 and 2001 and opted for a mix of components on my own homebuild boat.

The cam cleats I'm using are Ronstan and not a single one has failed on me yet. On the other hand I can name tens of incidents where the Harken versions failed on other (F16) boats.

For a while now I have been shaking my head at people who want a full harken fit-out on their boat and are willing to pay extra for that. I personally wouldn't even accept that at a discount !

The policy that has worked for me so far is the following :

Small well aligned blocks and cam cleats = Ronstan
Small block subjected to abuse = ONLY harken all stainless small block (actually the cheapest Harken components available!)
Auto Ratchets : Riley, Ronstan (post 2005) and I think the newest Harken are okay for a try too
Metal and plastic hardware like shackles and handles, beads = Wichard, RWO
All purpose and spare blocks etc = RWO, Seasure,
Rudder pintles = Vidana
Traveller tracks = only ball bearing I-tracks from Ronstan, I hate recirculating systems. Use only the 6 wheeled or more cars on high performance cats and you'll be happy ever after. Again, cheap and absolutely no issues with dirt, salt or even track damage.

I dislike jam cleats with a passion as none of them seems to work as expected or when they do then the eat through the lines too quickly.


So my advice would be to replace them with either Riley cleats or Ronstan cleats, I prefer the last. Their is only one real drawback with the ronstan cleats. They typically (if not exclusively) use plastic
guiderails. When the line is misaligned it will cut through these guide rails rather quickly. Especially the spi halyard cleat suffers from this. One solution is to remove the plastic guiderails and just fit a metal eyestrap to the top of the cleat using the same bolts that hold the cleat to the beam. The line can now never escape the cleat but pulling it into the cleat under a large angle is sacrifized. When the latter is necessary then going for the Riley imitation is an option as these are supplied with metal guide rails. For much less used cleats like the downhaul cleats, the plastic guiderails of the Ronstans are sufficient and I still don't have any meaningful wear on them there. Additionally, the plastic guiderails are easy to replace.

Good luck !

Wouter