Schaefer Roller FURLER question...help pls

[flyhop]

I am about to close on the purchase of an Oday 28. Going over the boat with the owner, he proudly produced a Shaefer roller furler (not a roller reefer...reefer has an extrusion that goes over the forestay) with a 150 Genoa attached and a stay sewn into the luff of the sail (this is a Neil Pryde manufacture...not a bubba-special). According to the owner, the shackle at the top is loosely secured (see photo) to the forestay (to keep sail from wrapping around forestay) and is raised by the jib halyard, while the drum is attached to the forward deck chainplate just aft of the forestay's attachment point. There are no other attachment points for this sail.About two years ago, he had this roller furler system hoisted when the jib halyard broke. He had a coastal FL yard put a new one on. It seems to be cheap 5/16" line which is now coming apart after only one season.My real question is "does anybody else have a setup like I've described"? In order to maintain proper sail shape, the stay built into the sail would have to be pretty tight, as most jib/genoas have a tight luff when hanked-on to forestay. I feel pretty sure a 3/8" Sta-Set-X halyard would do the job, but then it would seem the forestay would slacken some as the stay built into the genoa sail would be carrying more of the load. That's got to be really hard on the mast-mounted winch and cleat.I've got an e-mail exchange going with Schaefer, but I was hoping for some real-life experiences with this type of roller furler system. If you have a set up like this, please advise. Thanks for any information shared.

 

[KennyH]

sailed a Hans Christian 36 with one

Sailed one of these in the Bahamas that belonged to a friend of mine. Only problem I saw was the halyard takes a beating at the top pully as it is always in the same place. His shafed through and I had to go aloft and replace the thing. I would carefully inspect the halyard each season for any problems. It doesn't quite set as well as hanked on but for an old cruiser it was just fine.

 

[Tim22844]

Furler

What you have is one of the original Scheafer "Furling Units". As a sailmaker, we see fewer and fewer of these every year, as they are replaced with modern solid extrusion Furling/Reefing systems.  The problem with that unit, is that, as you described, it is only for furling, not reefing.The load of the halyard can be handled by your mast winch because it will be in shear.  Even Stayset X will stretch a bit under load, and the luff will sag a bit. On larger systems there was a block at the top of the head swivel which allowed for 2 to 1 purchase, but required a halyard twice as long as normal. Some even used a wire/rope combination halyard to limit stretch even more. Your headstay will still be in use as the primary support for the mast. The headstay in most cases will also be larger diameter than the luff wire. Should you decide to replace this with a Modern unit, Don't get rid of it. With a spare halyard, it can be used to hoist a second sail for down wind wing and wing.