A Plug for Sails

[Florin {VACATIONER}]

I am in luck, 'cause I have a MacGregor dealer closeby and I could go investigate their furler setup if they have any on display currently(CDI). What I am thinking is basically doing away with the jib halyard altogether. I figure if I can furl the jib all the way in, there's no need to lower the sail at all. Since we never leave the boat in the water anymore than a couple of days at a time (when we go camping for the weekend) I don't think the jib would mind all that much staying furled in the outdoors. Then, before trailering, we can remove the entire rig (furled jib and forestay with the furler), coil it up, and stick it inside the cabin away from the elements. How does that sound?

One thing I have to figure out though is how to attach the luff of the jib to the furler wire so that the wire doesn't spin inside the luff pocket when furling... as you can tell, I am not familiar at all with this type of contraption.

Thanks

Florin

[Charlie Jones]

Florin- with the CDI that isn't a problem- you sew a wire inside a pocket to the luff of the sail. That wire runs up in a groove on the furler and you use the attached halyard for hoisting AND for luff tension. It's a separate halyard- comes with the furler. Once you see one you'll understand- really a simple setup.

Ray- I agree- so are we. All our jibs on our 25 are hanked on and the working jib has a reef row in it to reef it to storm jib size. So we only carry two jibs. The working jib and a 150 light air genny. PLus an assymetrical we are having bui;lt for us.

We sail with the working jib almost all the time since the boat is basically main sail driven- old CCA style boat ya know That's the working jib flying in this picture.

[PAR]

Another point and a very important one, is the difference between roller furling and roller reefing. Furlers are just that, you wind the sail around the headstay (foil, luff wire, etc.) and it's in a neat package ready to be deployed again. A roller reefer comes a number of ways, usually including some luff shape filler-upper thingies, or other contrivance, to deal with the belly of the sail, as it's rolled up and still have some sort of useful shape to work with (which is none to good in the less costly systems)

The roller reefer gear requires a different sail (heavier cloth and different cut) then a furler system. A furler will likely jam when used as a reefing system and generally the furler systems are of much lighter construction. The one thing you don't want to happen when you have to reef is have a jammed headsail.

One way around this is to use a furler and have an extra headstay to hank on a smaller jib. You can roll up the big jib and hoist the working jib, ride out the blow, then unfurl the big jib and douse the working jib in the shadow of the big momma.

I, like Ray, (hope you're feeling better) am not fond of roller setups. They jam (though they've gotten much better in the engineering of the units now) just when you really need to get that sail off the bow. The shape of a rolled up headsail is a very poor thing to carry in heavy air. Even the reefing units have poor performance because of the shape issues. They add weight aloft, rig complication, additional windage, extra strings to pull, aren't cheap (for the ones that work) and don't perform as well as more traditional methods of reefing.

For headsail stowage they're hard to beat, just roll the darned thing up. The foil systems have come a long way, particularly the double groove ones, but I'm willing to bag a sail and have the ability to douse at will, regardless of conditions then get caught with a flogging beast, that is jammed and shredding itself to bits, because there's little else you can do with it, until the wind dies down.