[Public-list] Roller furling - or hanked on?

[Brian and Elaine Timmins]

  Let me chime in one more time on this topic. My preference is for having
roller furling / reefing.
  The point I'd like to add is a very short story. I dock my boats (as
opposed to mooring). One day, my wife and I took a couple of freinds out
sailing. On the way to open water, my engine died, so we sailed out and
enjoyed a beautiful early December sail. During the day, I tried,
unsuccessfully, to get the motor running. My wife started to worry about
returning to the dock, so I calmed her down by telling her that we would
sail in. Of course the approach into my slip was from the south and the wind
was too. While in open water still, we dropped and secured the mainsail and
continued on under jib alone. As we approached the slip, going downwind, we
just rolled up a little jib. The closer we got, the more we rolled in. The
last 50' or so was with just a wisp of sail out. As we entered the slip, the
jib was fully rolled and we grabbed our typical "brake line", came to a
perfect stop, and tied her up.
  The next day, our guests (who worked with my wife) commented about how
easily and smoothly we were able to dock under sail. Little did they know
that it was the first time I did it in many years and the first time ever
doing it down wind!
  Working roller furling made it easy.
Regards,
Brian ex#497


 1098224617.0