to furl or not to furl

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william

i will most likely be singlehanded 90% of the time. ....got all my lines aft this last weekend.....beautiful!! anyway, i can buy a headsail bag, ($139.00), rig a downhaul, ($50.00?), or break down and buy a small furler for possibly $400.00 plus the cost of having my genoa modified for it. question here....i have noticed some of the small furlers don't use a luff rope or even a foil, but some kind of eye arrangement. i'm sorta leaning toward a furler if i have to spend half as much on just a headsail bag anyway....yeah, i suppose i could live without a bag too :) oppinions welcome. suggestions on cheap, (no, make that economical good quality!), furlers welcome too. tia
 
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Chip Tobey

You may have already factored this, but ...

with the h-23, you will also have to alter your headstay in order to get a headsail furler to work. The fact that the stay attaches in the anchor well adds that extra level of complication.
 
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Steve O.

furl it!

Assuming that you are cruising and not racing. A furler will make your life much easier, especially flying solo.
 
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william

altering forestay

what about the furlers that go right over your existing forestay? i saw one furler that wentover your forestay on a max of 1/8" cable so that was just an rch too small for my 5/32"....does the h23 forestay have to be altered for those too. (not a bad thing i guess as the forestay arrangement that attaches in the chain locker on the h23 is the pits anyway. i had some stainless cut the other day that i can drill and use as a chainplate to bring the attaching point up out of the chain locker. guess i'll add that to the to do list. any ideas on furlers?
 
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Rick Macdonald

Schaeffer SnapFurl

I can't speak from my own experience about other furlers but I had my dealer install the Schaeffer SnapFurl. He was mostly familiar with the CDI furler and afterwards said he was very impressed with the Schaeffer unit. He hadn't sailed with it of course; he just installed it. Normally it just snaps over the forestay and the drum slides over the turnbuckle but if the chainplate is in the anchorwell or in a depressed area such as on the H26/H260 then forstay mods may be required anyway. When I went looking for a furler I wanted one that was considered a reefer as well. I got different stories about whether or not CDI and Hood furlers could be reefed or if they were only "all the way out or all the way furled" units. This issue steered me to the Schaeffer. The Schaeffer furler extrusion that snaps over the forestay is perfectly round. Somebody here complained some months ago about the CDI furler having a flat foil cross-section that rolls up awkwardly, and gives a different leading-edge shape from one tack to another depending on the angle of the oval-shaped wad. I just did a Google search and here is a forum discussion (happens to be Catalina) where all the brands (Hood, CDI, Schaeffer and Harken) seem to be equally recommended, except for the ProFurl for trailerables since it has an aluminum foil (which can get bent): http://www.catalina25-250.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=4229 ...RickM...
 
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John Schaub

Everybody loves their own brand of furler

I just went thru the whole thing this spring. I went with the CDI, and I'm very happy with it. You CAN reef as well as furl your sail with a CDI. Flat or round leading edge is kind or pointless to me, if it's windy enough to reef, I'm not just going one or two turns. By the time you wrap that sail around four or five times I don't think you could tell what shape it stated out as. With the sail all the way out I would rather have the flat luff anyway. On the Hunter 23 you have to either shorten the forestay by 12" and add 12" link plates to get it up off the deck so you can still open the anchor locker. Or modify the anchor locker doors and install it in the anchor locker. I did the latter and it looks like a factory job and works flawlessly. I've worked with fiberglass before and had the supplies on the shelf in the garage so it wasn't a big deal. If your just into cruising I would just figure in the cost of shortening the forstay & adding the link plates($50.00 at the most). The benefits of doing this are; You don't have to go thru all the extra work of modifying the doors like I did or pay someone to do it. The furler sits up higher off the deck so the sail sits higher off the deck meaning better visibility when sailing and you don't have to help skirt the sail over the life lines. The down side is you loss sail area. The two reasons I installed a furler in the first place were convenience and adding more sail area by adding a genoa. I wanted the sail down closer to the deck and as silly as it may sound I didn't like the apperance of the furler sitting up off the deck. If your sailing solo as much as you say than you will love having a furler. Buy what ever brand you like, I'm very happy with the CDI. At $385.00 delivered to my door it was a bargin. You can always add the roller bearings to the CDI later if you think it needs it.
 
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william

sounds like i'll look into the cdi

...i had kinda leaned that way myself just looking around. i have the stainless to raise the chainplate up from the chain locker and put the roller above deck. it does look a little "noticable" hanging up there but as a maintenance tech i'm afraid i have to take functionality, simplicity, and accessability over the asthetics of putting the roller in the anchor locker. (i would class myself more of a cruiser than a racer so visibility is a +). where did you find the cdi for 385.00 and how much to modify a headsail? is there any reason i can't install this myself?
 
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John Schaub

Best price on CDI at the sail warehouse

I found the CDI at The Sail Warehouse for $350.00 plus shipping, click on the link at the bottom of this page. The shipping to Indianapolis from California was $35.00. Yes by all means you can install it yourself, it comes with very good instructions. To have your sail modified with the #6 luff tape will cost around $150.00-$200.00 maybe more depending on if you put a sunbrella sun cover on it, which I advise you do. If you don't already have a genoa to use with your new furler they sell genoa/furler combos for about $800.00. You will still need to buy the furling line and the deck hardware to bring the line back to the cockpit.
 
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crazy dave

both systems

Both systems are good but putting the snap furl together is harder as we install them on Hunter and Catalina
 
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