Info wanted on small boat furling system
- Thread starter Hollyweirdos
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Yesterday I was able to get out and test the furler. It worked perfectly. Its interesting how the luff cable in the jib takes the load off of the forestay. I thought the forestay had gotten loose but then realized that the jib was just pulling harder than I expected. When the jib was furled and lowered the forestay was tight.
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I just got this wire furler set up on a 15 foot boat and it looks like it will work well. I used the same as HW and also had about the same problems with the sail interfering with the forestay and had to move the forestay at both the top and the bottom to get it away from the sail.
I’m also thinking about leaving the furled sail on the deck in a bag for trailering. Setup would be to just remove the bag, attach the halyard quick connect to the upper swivel and hoist.
HW, thanks for the info, definitely useful to me.
I’m also thinking about leaving the furled sail on the deck in a bag for trailering. Setup would be to just remove the bag, attach the halyard quick connect to the upper swivel and hoist.
HW, thanks for the info, definitely useful to me.
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Hey Walt you don't have to leave the bag on deck. Just pack it so when you open it there is the bottom with the drum with line and sheets as well as the top swivel.
Connect the bottom and top run the line and sheets and off you go.
Instead of running the sheets each time you could just use a quick connect to attach to the sail. Leave the sheets there all the time. Maybe a Velcro strip to keep the sail together.
Check out some of the videos for code 0 furlers on YouTube.. Here is one...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j35wNrIgSS8
Same idea but no continuous furl line.
(Hollyweirdos; I'm planing to build one for the PDRacer this winter.) Sush. Don't tell anyone.
Connect the bottom and top run the line and sheets and off you go.
Instead of running the sheets each time you could just use a quick connect to attach to the sail. Leave the sheets there all the time. Maybe a Velcro strip to keep the sail together.
Check out some of the videos for code 0 furlers on YouTube.. Here is one...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j35wNrIgSS8
Same idea but no continuous furl line.
(Hollyweirdos; I'm planing to build one for the PDRacer this winter.) Sush. Don't tell anyone.
Why do you have a separate wire for the forestay? The sail will sag off unless the halyard is pulled tight, then the headstay will sag..... so the furler ends up supporting the mast anyway. Is that the way it is designed to work? Just curious.
Most furling systems for upwind sails insure the luff is attached to the headstay..... Reaching sails and staysails, are different.
Most furling systems for upwind sails insure the luff is attached to the headstay..... Reaching sails and staysails, are different.
As far as I know - yes.
I’m not sure how common this is but I have had two boats now where the jib has an internal wire halyard that is part of the sail (Hobie 16 and C15). For setup, you first lift the mast and pin the forestay. The jib does not have the hank on’s that attach to the forestay, you just tighten the jib halyard and all the tension is in the jib built in wire luft. The forestay will go slack. Both of these boats have a way to tension the jib underway - part of the rig tuning.
I use this little boat in some really gusty places (between 5000 to over 9000 foot elevation this season) and if you need to drop the jib because the mast is going in the water if you don’t get it down fast, the wire luft sail is not attached to the forestay and ends up partly in the water. Manageable but a hassle since you have to deal with this at a bad time.
The furler for this type of sail is simple, just the rotating drum at the bottom and the swivel at the top. Somewhat odd to me that it works but it does seem to work fine. These are not reef able, it’s either on or off. However, there are some nice features to this. One is the setup, you don’t have the furler to deal with when pinning the mast and the rolled up jib is not at all fragile (can be folded up). The forestay is not taking the load but acts as a backup in case the wire luft in the jib were to bust. With a conventional furler, you have to be real careful about not stressing the forestay at the top of the furler during trailering setup (I think the majority of times I’ve heard about a mast coming down, it was because of this failure). You don’t have this issue at all with the wire luft furler.
Finding, Im just trying to save 10% on my setup time. Of course, this onlly happens to be about 48 seconds since it takes me an honest 8 minutes to go from pulling into the parking lot to being ready to launch with this boat (it is setup to be super easy and Ive done it a lot)
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