Jib Furlers for Trailarables

[watercolors II]

Furler No!

The last item you would want to install on a boat that you trailer. If keep your boat moored and move it a couple times a year OK. The work raising and lowering that item as compared to a couple sail changes. Put your money into additional sails they will work better.

 

[Joe11688]

I am looking at potentially buying a jib furler for my 25' Lancer but I trailer it, so demasting is part of the game -- I am looking at the Harken small boat furler the cruising kit in particular that consists of the furling drum and swivel at top and the existing jib luff wire seems used to carry the headstay load -- seems it can only be used for furling and not for reefing.
Any comments on furling and reefers for trailerables would be appreciated and if anyone has experience with the furler I am looking at ....... that would really be great.

If you are raising your mast from aft, you could go with a CDI Roller Furler and tie the furler luff off to your Gin Pole about 3' away from the mast. You could raise your mast by yourself. You need toggles at both ends of the fore stay. T-Ball fittings in a mast slot plate will fail. I like to keep my forestay unpinned when the mast is down. So I made up a quick release pin that also serves as a toggle. I use a press button quick release pin under the furler drum for quick removal, plus a Johnson Handy-Lock on my back stay that allows enough slack in the forestay to remove the pin under the furler drum. There's a little bit of time involved in setting up the Gin Pole, block & tackle, and the pivot bridles, but once it's all set up, the mast can be raised or lowered with the furler attached, by one person. I've never raised/lowered my mast with the Gennie on the furler and I wouldn't try it. I keep my boat on a mooring at our club, so the Gennie is put up once a season and taken off at the end of the season.
Joe

 

[somers12]

This system works great for me. It wraps up with your jib or genoa easily when you drop your mast. Before I found this in the boat when I bought it last year, I searched the net for furlers, and found you can still purchase these. I forget their name or where I saw them now, but you will have an idea what they look like.

Good Luck... Steve

 

[Joe11688]

I am looking at potentially buying a jib furler for my 25' Lancer but I trailer it, so demasting is part of the game -- I am looking at the Harken small boat furler the cruising kit in particular that consists of the furling drum and swivel at top and the existing jib luff wire seems used to carry the headstay load -- seems it can only be used for furling and not for reefing.
Any comments on furling and reefers for trailerables would be appreciated and if anyone has experience with the furler I am looking at ....... that would really be great.

Francois,
I'd go for a CDI Roller Furler. I have one on my O'Day 222 and I can reef with it. These other furlers like the Schaeffer that came with my boat, aren't made for reefing and they can be very difficult at times. The only thing that I suggest is to have toggles at both ends of your forestay. T-Ball fittings in a mast plate slot will break. I no longer trailer my O'Day 222 and I've opted for a mooring, but if your going to continue to trailer, you should disconnect the furler from the mast tang and make a furler cradle. I came up with a Mickey Mouse way of have a quick disconnect on my mast tang which is a rigging pin that acts in the same way as a toggle. I use a press button quick pin under my furler drum for faster attachment and removal. When I raise or lower my mast, I tie a rolling hitch on the plastic furler luff about a foot above my Gin Pole and tie it to the Gin Pole about 3' away from the mast. I take the rope around the luff and put a couple of half hitches on the Gin Pole to keep the luff close to the pole as the mast goes up or down. This allows me to raise/lower the mast by myself with the furler attached. Time consuming? yes, but if you really want a nice furler, this is the way to go. Also, if you plan on installing an anchor roller, you may want make a provision to raise the furler drum. It's easier and cheaper to do it now than later.
Joe

 

[OceanBluzs]

I've been thinking of adding a furler this season as well. Has anyone heard/bought from Bacon Sails? I've found the CDI FF2 for $399 with the add on Ball Bearing Kit for $65. It's looking almost too attractive to pass up at this point. http://baconsails.com/ships_store/index.php?cPath=476_427

 

[Joe11688]

I've been thinking of adding a furler this season as well. Has anyone heard/bought from Bacon Sails? I've found the CDI FF2 for $399 with the add on Ball Bearing Kit for $65. It's looking almost too attractive to pass up at this point. http://baconsails.com/ships_store/index.php?cPath=476_427

I can't help you with Bacon Sails, but $400 is about the standard price right now for a CDI FF-2 Roller Furler. If you buy the FF-2 Furler, you won't need the ball bearings, just the washer that the drum sits on. Also, the control line doesn't come with the furler. You need to buy that extra. Rudy at D & R Marine advised me not to get the ball bearings because they have been know to fail. He said that the drum on the washer will work just as easy for a furler that size. CDI recommends that the fore stay should have toggles at on both ends. I've had my CDI for a couple of years now, and I love it. No more going to the bow and messing with sails. You can't beat that.
Joe

 

[Ron20324]

I've been thinking of adding a furler this season as well. Has anyone heard/bought from Bacon Sails? I've found the CDI FF2 for $399 with the add on Ball Bearing Kit for $65. It's looking almost too attractive to pass up at this point. http://baconsails.com/ships_store/index.php?cPath=476_427

I live in Annapolis, and Bacon's is a family-run long-time chandlery of good standing in the sailing world. Not so much stuff for power boats, but great old and new items for sailors. I buy parts and sell stuff on consignment there. Actually, I'll be over there today moseying around while my car gets inspected next door.

 

[Paul Brinkley]

Francois- if you do get a furler, you will probably want some type of mast-raising system because of the added weight of the jib and furler. I have a MacGregor 26S with a furler, and I made a system for a few bucks which makes it much easier to raise nd lower the mast. I made some sketches fo another poster, so if you're interested, let me know and I will email them to you. By the way, I really like my CDI furler.

 

[Beija Flor]

The furling-foil on the CDI is a problem when you're trailering, at least on my 26X. (I have an FF II like Doug91Mac26S.) I'm sure the same is true for Harken, Schafer, Facnor, or whatever you get. The forestay is about 3 or 4 feet longer than the mast, even the "flexible" foils are a lot stiffer than a bare steel forestay cable, and that extension is fragile when it's unsupported.

My answer was to make a 7-foot-long "tray" of 4-inch PVC water pipe, cut roughly in half (actually 5/8 - 3/8, and the 5/8-round piece is my tray). I made a couple of "clamps" of over-half-round 3" pipe that I bolted and glued to the bottom of the tray. The forestay, with furled and covered jib, sits comfortably in the tray; I tie it to the base of the mast, and it's a sturdy and quite stable support.

BobM is correct to say "just be careful" - but not just the first time, be careful with it every time! Takes me about 10 or 15 minutes longer to raise or lower my mast, compared with the bare-cable forestay on my Mac 19 ... but two weeks ago, when I was out in bigger winds than I'd expected in the 26X, I was SO grateful that all I had to do was roll in the jib to secure it. Or roll in a little and reef it.

 

[drbeer]

This system works great for me. It wraps up with your jib or genoa easily when you drop your mast. Before I found this in the boat when I bought it last year, I searched the net for furlers, and found you can still purchase these. I forget their name or where I saw them now, but you will have an idea what they look like.

Good Luck... Steve

Hi,

I've been shopping for a new furler. I have a flexible furler and am not that happy with it. What I don't like about it is that it sags. Since the furler isn't rigid when it sags it makes it hard to reel in the large genoa I have. I originally thought that maybe it and/or the forward stay wasn't sized properly and I should shorten one or both of them. The problem is that the boat is a trailerable (26M) and if I do this I'm going to have a real tough time attaching the forward stay. As best I can tell from measuring it if I shorten the stay to where the flexible furler doesn't sag I won't have enough length for it to reach from the mast to where it attaches at the bow.

So then I thought that maybe my mast stays weren't tensioned properly. I've tightened them up quite a bit, probably as much as I safely can, but there is still a sag in the flexible furler.

So at this point I'm ready to give up and try going with something else. I was looking at the pic you posted and the system you show there looks like some of the ones I've seen in some websites. As best as I can tell, and I may be mistaken because I haven't been able to find a single good picture, these consist of 2 parts, a drum and a swivel. As best I can tell the way this appears to work is that you cut the headstay then re-attach it between the drum and the swivel such that the part of the headstay between these drum and the swivel can turn, but the rest of the stay (i.e. above the swivel and below the drum) stays stationary. The result of this being that the sail wraps around the stay wire itself and you don't need a rigid tube or some flexible PVC thing.

So I'm wondering if I've somehow totally misconstrued how this works, or if it does work like I think it does what the drawback is to having the jib/genoa wrapping directly onto the stay? It seems to me that such a system is simple and less costly so why would someone want or need to use a rigid tube or flexible pvc? My guess is that since it seems like the vast majority of furlers are tubes or flexible pvc units I'm probably missing something.

FWIW though I personally don't recommend the flexible furler...

thanks

 

[drbeer]

oops, almost forgot. The system I saw that looked like the one you show in the pic looks like something from Facnor. I saw it on the page for their gennaker & code 0 furlers. I'm not quite sure what the difference is between the gennaker & code 0 though. They both look like they're some kind of hybrid genoa-spinnaker sail.

It isn't clear from what I could find whether you can use one of these gennaker/code zero furlers on a standard jib or genoa. It's amazing how the marketing folks that work for equipment manufacturers can manage to use a lot of space on a web page while telling you almost nothing about their product and including no real useful pictures....

BTW they make these in a continuous line version. I'd never seen these before and wonder if they're new and if so why didn't anyone think of them sooner....

 

[George H260]

Furlers for trailerables.

I think you'll find a great many trailer sailors have the CDI furler installed. There are some tips and tricks associated with it but I can't imagine sailing without one. It's sorta like the difference between a coorded and wireless phone, once you get one you'll never go back

http://h260.com

 

[Beija Flor]

Bacon Sails

I've gotten a couple of things from Bacon Sails, and I've found them quite satisfactory. If you're in the Annapolis area, their store is worth visiting, too - you can find some really cool bargains in the used & old gear. I bought a used Fortress FX-11 anchor for a bit less than half the price of a new one.

You might need to call them back about special orders. I wanted a "Stowaway Bag" for the anchor, and they said it was a special order ... called back once, the guy who took the call couldn't tell me where it was ... the second time I called back, the guy who did the ordering confessed that he hadn't ordered it, but then they shipped it directly to me at their cost.

I've been thinking of adding a furler this season as well. Has anyone heard/bought from Bacon Sails? I've found the CDI FF2 for $399 with the add on Ball Bearing Kit for $65. It's looking almost too attractive to pass up at this point. http://baconsails.com/ships_store/index.php?cPath=476_427