Headstay adjustment w harken roller furling

[Bill Leathen]

I believe I need to move my mast rake forward about 3". But I have a Harken roller furler installed by the previous owner. I know I can let tension off the side stays and back stay to get what I want, but how do I adjust the roller furling unit? There is a threaded bolt or sleve at the bottom of the drum that looks like I can just move the drum down and in affect, shorten the headstay. Has anyone done this? The Harken instruction book does not seem to deal with this problem. Any advice will be appreciated.Thanks in advance.Bill Leathen -bleathen@aol.com sailing Kukana III

 

[Ray Bowles]

Bill, I can only speak of the fruling units

I have seen and that's not a lot. Most have either a turnbuckle or 2 plates that have multipule mounting holes down their entire length to allow pinning at different heights. This often leeds to cutting of the surplus as they wont fit otherwise.Regardless there must be some form of adjustment.What is your rake set at? what is your mast bend with the current rake?You don't even want to think of loosening your shrouds to effect more or less rake unless you elect to do an entire mast and rig tuning trip.In the small boat archives within the past 4 months is a load of info on mast tuning and some of the measurements required. Although it is for the water ballasted series of boats without backstays there is a lot of info you might want to see.Look under "mast tuning" or "mast tuning procedure".RayS/V Speedy

 

[jay]

Harken adjustment

I have the same type of furling. the adjustment depends on what type of mast you have. The stay can be adjusted by loosening the nut on the bottom of the furling. The rake on my Zspar mast can be adjusted by tightening or loosening the backstay. I am still working on how much rake to have in the mast. I make adjustments about every month, to try some different rake amounts. I try to get about a 10 inch seperation of the main halyard from the mast, on a calm day. By the end of the season I have it perfect. This year I plan to mark the furler and backstay where it seems the best.s/v Winter Solace