I sailed my 30' Catalina for the first time last year and the last couple of times out, my roller furling jamed as I pulled out the sail, maybe 3/4 of the way out. Looking at the drum, the furling sheet was rolled up on itself instead of lying in flat rows. I am assuming that caused the jam. Any suggestions on how to fix that or keep it from happening?
CDI Roller Furling Jib Jaming
- Thread starter rose8878
- Start date
One turn, maybe two around a winch will keep enough tension on the furling line to keep it from over wrapping itself in the drum. Also needs to be pretty small line, like 5/16 or 3/8". If you compare the CDI to other brands you'll see the drum is smaller than many. Makes it more prone to jamming.
Check the angle as others have said. I have a CDI FF2 and it was a bit jinky when I first installed it but, I swapped out the line and use 1/4" now and improved the angle as well to the block on the toe rail. When I furl, I use tension on the jib sheet to keep things tight. If it is jamming, never use a winch to unfurl. Bad things can happen to a forestay with a bunch of mechanical advantage on a jammed furler.
The smaller like is harder on the hands though. One trick is to use a larger line but remove the core from the first part of it, the distance from the drum to the cockpit. That way it takes up less room, but the part you handle is a more comfortable diameter.
I had the same problem on my Furlex furler about half way into my first season. I changed out the line with new and the problem went away. My thinking was the old line was soft, fuzzy and swollen so it took up more room on the drum and the wraps wouldn't roll off each other to lay smooth.
That worked for a while and then I started having problems again. I asked on here and the most common response was to change from 5/16 to 1/4 line. I thought that might be small for the hand so I followed another suggestion and de-cored the first 8' that get wrapped on the drum. When fully furled the there is about 4-5' of de-cored line showing.
No problems at all since I did that.
That worked for a while and then I started having problems again. I asked on here and the most common response was to change from 5/16 to 1/4 line. I thought that might be small for the hand so I followed another suggestion and de-cored the first 8' that get wrapped on the drum. When fully furled the there is about 4-5' of de-cored line showing.
No problems at all since I did that.