Furlers
"Practical Sailor" rated most major brand furlers as "pretty good." I think the issues are who is going to install it, and after-installation service (as well as price, of course). I put a Furlex 200 on my H28.5 and have been very happy with it. I looked hard at the SpinTec furler and it sure looks like a quality furler at the right price. The only reason I didn't buy it was that it requires you to go aloft to attach the head of the sail to the top of the furler extrusion (no sliding upper swivel, like most furlers). They also have an extra "device" you can buy as an option to try to connect the head to the foil from the deck, but it looks pretty awkward and difficult to use. To me, it was like trying to toss that little ring around a coke bottle at a carnival. Being able to raise, or lower, a headsail easily from the deck, and alone, was and is a pretty important feature to me. The maximum luff of a furling headsail depends on the distance from the upper swivel shackle to the shackle on the drum -- a distance that will vary considerably with the type of furler you buy and how it is installed. Since most all the furler manufacturers have their manuals online, you can look up this distance for most all of them.
