My 1993 Hunter Legend 375 has a below deck furler and original UK 130 Genoa. It is near impossible to furl in. I lined bearings. Anyone have experience with this. Thanks. Jerry
Roller furler
- Thread starter Jrtauber
- Start date
I have the same boat also with the original furler. I did have problems furling once and it was caused by a too tight jib halyard. Try easing that a bit and seeing if that frees it up. Other than that one time, mine works OK although it doesn’t always hold a reef in a blow. I think I would need to pull it tighter maybe with the winch.
Be real careful putting the furling line onto a winch as winch power can easily break the furling gear.
There are a number of things to check, 1. Halyard tension, 2. the size of the furling line and how much line is on the drum, the first 8 - 12 feet of the line on the drum should be de-cored to allow space on the drum, measure back about that distance from the bitter end of the line on the drum, take a needle and sail twine and sew through the cover and the core of the line several times to lock the core in that position so it doesn't pull back further, bend the line in a "U" shape and with an awl or something similar work the core out of the cover and pull it out back to where it had been attached to the drum, heat the cover to seal the end and then put it back on the furler drum and knot it, then roll your line back on the drum, 3. the line should enter the furler at a 90 deg angle, this allows the line to wind onto the drum from top to bottom and from bottom to top for an even distribution of line and no over rides, 4. check both your bearing in the base of the furler and at the top of the foil. The top bearing may be scarred and catching the stay as it turns, the bottom bearings are Delrin and should not be greased with anything. The get dirty and crusted with debris, was the top and bottom races out with a hose with some decent water pressure to clean both bearing races. Try all this see if it helps, many times it's a combination of several of these things. I've had to rebuild furlers on both my former boat a 1992 35.5 Hunter and on the present boat a 1995 40.5 Hunter. Good luck. P.S. using a winch on the furler is not recommended.
I believe the OPs furler is a continuous line furler from Hood (Seafurl 800 I believe). At least that’s what mine is and what I based my comments on. 
I have a 1990 Hunter legend to 37.5. The upper swivel lost all its bearings and seized. I wasn't able to curl without a tremendous amount of force using a winch. I just replaced the forestay and the furler with a Selden below deck furler. I suppose you could try to source a new upper swivel. My bet is your upper swivel has seized up. also, you may be getting some halyard wrap if you're halyard tension or pennant tension isn't enough.
I have a 96' 37.5 and had similar issue with my furler. The fix turned out to be the round two part disc inside the roller tube beneath the furler and above the turnbuckle has disintegrated. I called up Hood and the lady answered the phone and told me what I needed, I bought two of them so I would have a spare. They were not expensive. Fixed the problem. I attached a pdf of the manual. The piece I am talking about is #2 in the dynamited view of the roller.