I like the Pardey downhaul idea (what rgranger describes) best of all. It's easy to rig and can (should) be led, like a furling line, aft to the cockpit. Add netting to the pulpit and back to the first stanchion and it's far cheaper than a furler. You can pull the sail right down onto the deck because, having hanks, it will flake itself into a nice tight accordion and stay put, and you're still in the cockpit. You can't do that with a headstay foil or furler, ever. Lead your anchor rode to a cleat farther aft and it's not in the way.
I have one
very firm recommendation about choosing a furler, and that is that it
must include an easy means of removing the sail, and hoisting an alternative sail, under way, at sea, meaning in nasty conditions. Barring that, any furler is essentially a one-shot deal, suitable only for protected waters (within cell-phone coverage of TowBoatUS). The cheap little plastic-extrusion ones, having their own halyards (which are too small; they rely in boltrope friction to augment their anemic strength) are suitable only for daysailers under about 22 ft. My preference for your boat would be the Schaefer 1100-series. In my view the SS Harken drums look cheap; they are heavy and are the very devil to disassemble and work on (too many little screws getting lost).
Nearly
no furlers out there are designed to be used as a reefer, no matter what anyone says. With a partially-furled headsail, you have no control over leech and foot tension, the shape of the sail is ineffective, and because it rolls upwards and not forwards, you blow your center of effort, affecting the helm, and probably increase heel, due to the sail being too high. It's either in or out. And of course 'reefing' it looks desirable only in nasty conditions, in which these matters are more important and these problems are made worse.
More caveats (by no means meant to dissuade you; I am 'Doctor Doom' around here so I get that rep):
As a matter of routine, cycle the sail up and down the furler to exercise the halyard. The worst thing is to have the halyard remain inert, bent over a sheave and through a fairlead at the top of the mast, exposed to the sun at its most vulnerable point, and to never look at it. Furlers are
NOT 'no-maintenance'; they're not even 'low-maintenance'. Pay attention to it more than once a season. At sea, inspect it like weekly.
If you have two headsail halyards (which I hope you do), alternate them on and off furler duty. This will save the line and help prevent 'sudden' failures.
Don't deploy the roller-furling genoa as the only sail on the boat except in very mild conditions. This setup puts the whole boat out of trim and makes it hard to steer-- the worse the conditions, the worse the effect. A good furler will allow you to bring in the genoa and to hoist a smaller jib, even a storm sail.
This means not to avoid using the main; especially not avoiding slab-reefing the main. People seem to default to the furling jib because they think it's easy, typically the same people who fear slab-reefing, probably because they don't know how to do it well or the boat's not set up well for it. I once saw three guys on a 33-footer trying to make the Chesapeake Bay Bridge under (apparently full) genoa alone. It was blowing 25-30 kts out of the west and they could not head up close enough to make it. Finally they threw a tack and went off north, towards Ocean City, Maryland, probably, in order to retry it on a better line. I was yelling, '
Pull up the main!' but I doubt they heard me or would have considered it. Ignorance is
not bliss.
Many people experience drastic headstay sag when a furler is installed. You can tell these people by how they complain that Cherubini Hunters 'won't point up'. First, the furler extrusion assembly has to be the correct length for the headstay-- not even 3/8" too short. This is a very common error-- people adjusting their lives just to have the magic furler on the boat. All Cherubini-designed boats want mast rake. This helps pointing ability.
Also, the furler extrusions add
great weight to the stay, requiring increased backstay and lower-shroud tension to compensate. This is not merely a matter of taking up on the other shrouds, especially on a 40-year-old boat. The best thing is to install a backstay adjuster. But you have a
Hunter 30; that means you need to examine the compression-post structure, especially the awful metal thing under the sole, and the state of the (cored) deck to see if you can stand a little more load in these parts. Adding a furler (and especially a backstay adjuster to keep it in tune) could mean more harm than good. You could punch a hole in the deck and collapse the cabin sole. So, before adding the furler, first pull the mast and do a proper inspection. (Then call me. Or see my blog where I wrote about it.
)
By now I sound like I agree with those who suggest you sail the boat around for a season or two to get to know it the way it is now. And I do. Adding gadgets is not the first thing you should do, having bought a boat that's new to you. The boat will talk to you, teach you about it, show you what it likes. Listen to it-- this is only wise.
And there are many very nice bag-the-sail-on-the-stay bags available, even on this site.
My dad (the designer) lay dying in the hospital and my little brother said, 'Dad, you never gave me any advice.'
Dad said, 'Save your money.'
That's what I'm sharing with you.
