Hood Furlers

[Scott]

Anyone have experience with the Hood 707 SL furler? I was offered a good price to upgrade at a boat show from my current 705 LD which doesn't really reef.Thanks,Scott

 

[Hayden]

The LD can be reefed

Before you commit the bucks to upgrade, you might try reefing the LD. I have a C30 tall rig with a 150% Genny on an LD Hood. I reef it a lot. The secret is to keep tension on BOTH ends of the line. As you have undoubtedly found, if you just pull in part of the sail and cleat off the one line, it will very soon unroll again. If you take the slack out of the unroll end, it will stay just fine. I have a large jamb cleat and when I get the sail in as far as I want it, I pull both lines tight and wrap them together through the cleat.Good luck.Hayden WatsonS/V Papillon1988 C30 tr/bsSpokane, WA

 

[sgalper@compuserve.com]

You won't be sorry

I used the LD for 18 years and had no problem reefing or furling with it. But I recently changed to a single-line furler and I like it a lot better. The big difference is that with a single line, you can roll up the sail hand-over-hand, and get it in pretty quickly. You can't do that with the LD. Another benefit of SL is the ability to run the furling line through a Hexaratchet (one way) block, so it won't try to pull the line out of your one-handed grip while rolling up a sail under pressure.