Roller Furling

[Paul]

I recently purchased my catalina 30 and have not had any experience with roller furling. On sailing the boat home for the first time, we had the genoa out all the way when 25-30 knot winds kick up. Needless to say, we had too much sail up and attempted to furl but we could'nt. So we had to take the whole sail down. Embarassingly, can anyone provide me with the basic procedures for a Harken roller furling system? Thank you!

 

[Roger Noble]

Did you luff the sail?

You didn't say what you did to try to furl the sail. You can't furl the sail with out luffing it - on our C-30 with an ancient Streamstay furler we let it go completely. The sail flogs while you're furling it, but the only problem is the noise. Never use a winch to furl.

 

[Dave McCarthy]

Halyard tension

I had a similar problem with my first attempt to reef using a roller furler.It turned out that the halyard tension was too tight. I eased the halyard a bit, and life was good again!!!

 

[Joe Luciano]

Foil Problem?

When I first bought my C-30, I had difficulty furling with the harken furler as well. In very much wind, it was just tough to roll up, even when luffing it a bit. Turns out that the head foil (the aluminum piece that the sail luff feeds into)had dropped down and was rubbing on the drum as it turned. This in turn caused more friction and made the furling more difficult. It was a fairly easy thing to loosen the bolting where the foil is attached at the bottom and push it up the head stay a few inches. Tighten up the bolts and problem solved. Also, this is a good time to lubricate the drum bearing with some silicone lubricant. So, if your drum doesn't turn really easy, you might want to check to see if your head foil didn't drop down. Also, check your blocks on the furling line to make sure that they are all moving well. Good luck!