I just purchased an Oday 22 and I want to add a self furling head sail. What brand of furler do Oday 22 owners recommend?
Head furling system for Oday 22
- Thread starter Arthurg
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I bought a CDI Roller Furler FF-2 for my O'Day 222 and I recommend it highly. I bought it off Rudy at D&R Marine http://www.drmarine.com/ and he told me to get the furler without ball bearings. All that drum needs to spin on is the big washer that comes with it. Larger furlers require ball bearings, but the bearings can be troublesome on these furlers.
Make sure that you get enough control line to mount the cleat as far aft as you can. Don't mount the drum control line cleat in front of a Gennie winch. The sheet will get fouled in it every time you go to tack. The CDI furlers can be reefed which is a great feature.
If your sail is old, you may be better off buying a sail to go with it because you would need to have your present sail converted over from piston hanks to a special tape that fits into the Vinyl luff on the furler. Also, the old sail would need a UV shield sewn on to it. Without the UV shield, the sail will only last three seasons.
Decide which side of the boat that you want the control line and also which way you want the sail to roll up.
My sail rolls clockwise and the line is on the Starboard side of my boat. A sail maker needs to know which direction that the sail will roll so that he can sew the UV shield on to the correct side of the sail.
This year, I mounted a horn type jam cleat just behind my stern rail post not far from my regular stern cleat. I had to cut a deck plate into my fuel compartment to be able to get at the bolts for it but it was worth it.
You can't beat a good roller reefing furler.
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I'll second the CDI furler! We had one on our old CAL 21 and it worked great, we didn't have the ball-bearings either, bearing was actually a teflon cylinder/disc.
That said, if I were doing it again, I'd at least look at the Schaefer Snap-Furl. It is a bit more rugged them the CDI for not much more $$. However, the best feature of the CDI (if you will leave sail on furler all season) is that the halyard is internal, you don't use the standard halyard on your mast. This prevents the halyard wrap problem of many furlers and greatly simplifies the setup. The Snap-Furl uses a convential halyard swivel, using hte mast-mounted jib halyard, this does add a bit of complexity. If you will use only one sail on the furler or will be leaving the sail in place all season, I'd go with the CDI.
That said, if I were doing it again, I'd at least look at the Schaefer Snap-Furl. It is a bit more rugged them the CDI for not much more $$. However, the best feature of the CDI (if you will leave sail on furler all season) is that the halyard is internal, you don't use the standard halyard on your mast. This prevents the halyard wrap problem of many furlers and greatly simplifies the setup. The Snap-Furl uses a convential halyard swivel, using hte mast-mounted jib halyard, this does add a bit of complexity. If you will use only one sail on the furler or will be leaving the sail in place all season, I'd go with the CDI.
I installed a Schaefer snap furler on my Sonar. I installed it myself in a morning with a friend helping. The mast on the boat was down. Very simple if you let it unroll a couple of days before you install. The plastic comes rolled up and unless you let it stretch out for a couple of days, it fights back. Measure carefully at least twice since once you click the sloted plastic together, it's not coming apart. Worked well for 4 years for me and is still in use by the current owner. Ernie
I don't know too much about the Schaeffer Snap-Furl. It's probably a good furler for the money, but if it ties up the Jib halyard so you can't use it for mast raising/lower from the stern with the aid of a Gin Pole, it would present a real problem on my boat.
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I'll throw in my vote for a CDI furler too. I have an FF4 without ball bearings for my Oday 25. Last year when I bought the boat, the furler was not rigged properly so we ended up not using it. This year, with the mast already up, I realized the halyard was the problem. Fantastic customer service -- they diagnosed the problem over the phone, sent me a replacement halyard (arrived in 2 days), and walked me through how to fix it with the mast up and without climbing up. Took 20 minutes to fix, and now I don't know how we ever sailed without a furler.
I agree with you. You just can't beat a furler. I've never used a whisker pole with it up to this year and boy what a difference in performance that makes going down wind.
Sail handling now is so much easier for me with the furler. No more having to hank on the sail and raising it or letting it down, un hanking it and stowing it in the cabin. It was so much work not to mention the danger of handling that sail while standing on the bow with the boat sailing along under the autopilot. I didn't mind it so much when I was younger but now that I've reached "Geezerdom" the furler has been Heaven sent.
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