Roller Furling/Reefing Systems

[Bark]

Any recommendations? Things I should insist upon? I don't need anything overly high-tech, i.e. for serious racing. Any look better than others on a traditional boat? My old Merriman/Facnor is in its death throes, and I can't seem to find parts ... Thanks.

Ben

[paladin]

I've had a long, very fruitful relationship for many years with Pro-furl....never a breakdown..

[Hwyl]

CDI are really cheap and have improved their quality

[JimConlin]

I had 15 trouble-free years with a Harken furler.

[Ian McColgin]

All my friends with ProFurl and Harken are happy. If you must go foil, either is good. They furl, not reef. At least not well.

To get reefing you need to accomodate the fact that a sail is 3-D, not a flat sheet. You need to bind up the belly.

This, by the way, is why roller booms are such a disaster unless they are shaped, and then they still don't work except to one point. Who want's a main with but one reef point? Anyway, enough of that tear. As I remember there's at least one serious deep water guy on this forum who deeply disagrees with me and has the sea miles to have earned his opinion.

For a while there was a gimmiky system that turned the inner parts of the foil a bit faster.

Best solution - it gives but one reef point but on a genny that works - has foam strips sewn in the luff. More toward the center. As the sail winds up, they take some slack out of the belly. Roll to the reinforced reef tack and peak patches and you're set.

The reinforced tack and peak are needed to avoid local stretch on the foot and leech when reefed.

The foam needs to be in strips to avoid it bunching duuring the roll.

If your sailmaker doesn't know the formulae for this, get someone else.

Have a smaller jib to run up the foil anyway. My friend with the reefable unit has a 180% that reefs to 150% and a small jib of 125% that reefs to 90%. Very nice. He goes to the little jib if sustained Strong Breeze (Force 6, about 20+ knots) or more.

G'luck

[Ocean Spray]

Speaking of roller furling, what kind of roller furling do smaller one design boats like the 110 use?
I have an older 24'00" one design Raven and the roller furler that we use actually uses bungy cord to maintain retrival tension. It works, but it's very primative. Can anyone tell me what the 110's or other small one designs use for roller furling? Website? Manufacturor?
Cost?

[Zane Lewis]

When we went the furler way on Dad's 8 ton yawl we went with Reef Rite brand along with a matched genoa made to suit and we retrofitted an old Yankee for stronger wind racing windward work. A locally made one with some very clever ideas.
http://www.reefrite.co.nz/head_sail_furler.htm

We saw the following features.
Had been around for 20 years or more (Others may have a date)
Did not just reley on the furling line to keep it up. They have a spring loaded locking pin as well. Will wind up but not out until you tension up the release line.
Offer a slug option for sails. Means you can lower a headsail like it's on hanks or run double headsails in the double luff grove tracks.
The loading point is a 1mtr above the bottom of the track. this allows you to drop the sail, put some ties around it and then lift it our of the track in a contained bundle.

NB re this. Have you ever watched people loading or removing a headsail from a foil . can be a 3 man job. 1 to feed, 1 to hold the sil from blowing away and 1 to hoist.

Cheer's

Zane

[John B]

I have one of those, its a neat thing and great if you into a bit of casual racing as it means you can have 2 sails loaded at the same time. If you leave the head swivel on you still have to go bareheaded for a short time but you can drop and hoist as fast as you can change the halyard over. What Zane says about changing sails at anchor or a mooring is bang on too.

[paladin]

Perhaps the reason my system worked so well is that my boat was a true cutter....and in addition to the double headsails there was an inner stay that one could hank on a smaller storm jib.....I could totally furl the genoa and keep the jib, furl both and hoist the splinter if I was expecting bad weather, I could reef the main or I could drop her in the lazy jacks and bend on the storm sail. Off shore in iffy weather I'm the worlds biggest chikkin.....I would furl the two headsails and a deep reef main to catch some sleep. I normally slept in small runs in the cockpit, and normally during the day, staying awake and watching at night, and carried more sail at that time. It depends on crew and sailing distances and how you develop your habits.

[rbgarr]

Some small racing boats like 110s use continuous line drums instead of roller drums and mount them below deck level so the sail can sweep the deck.

[StevenBauer]

Have you read the Wykeham-Martin article on Classic Marine's website?

www.classicmarine.co.uk/Articles/WMgear.htm

Lots of other good articles on there.

Steven