[Public-List] Roller Furling

Thu Sep 28 11:17:10 PDT 2017

Hello Jeff – 

Sailing with a headsail partially furled, particularly in heavy air, destroys the sail.

You’ve probably seen how mainsails have reinforcing at the reefs... this is because of the concentrations of loads and the new clew and tack when the sail is reefed.  When a genoa is partially furled, it has a new tack and head... but no reinforcing.  The sail cloth is stretched and that’s the end of that sail with regard to shape.  The worst manifestation of this is a stretched leach, which shows as a flutter caused by the damage to the sail cloth allowing distortion in shape.  

For a while some sailmaking conglomerates were offering an option that involved sewing reefing positions in headsails in the form of reinforcement patches such as one sees in mains... in use the sailor would furl till the head and tack patches were up to the stay... but in practice that doesn’t help much because the distorting loads carry round the furler stay, not just at the point.

And besides all that, one gets a poor shape when a sail is partially furled.  Too bulbous in the middle of the bunt, too tight at the head and tack.  And, to combat this, some companies were for a while offering foam inserts to the luff of sails in hopes of making them half-furl more effectively... but this of course didn’t address the basic issue that using a furler for reefing destroys the sail.

Gord

 #426 Surprise

From: Jeffrey <fongemie at gmail.com>
Reply-To: <fongemie at gmail.com>
Date: Thursday, September 28, 2017 at 2:04 PM
To: Gordon Laco <mainstay at csolve.net>, George Dinwiddie via Public-List <public-list at lists.alberg30.org>
Cc: George Dinwiddie <gdinwiddie at alberg30.org>
Subject: Re: [Public-List] Roller Furling

Gord, 

Did you write that reffing a furling headsail via rolling some of it in is bad for the sail? I'd not heard this before.  What's the issue? 

Jeff

On Thu, Sep 28, 2017 at 11:54 AM, Gordon Laco via Public-List <public-list at lists.alberg30.org> wrote:

That’s the way I did it aboard the Folkboat...

G
#426 Surprise

On 2017-09-28, 11:35 AM, "Public-List on behalf of George Dinwiddie via Public-List" <public-list-bounces at lists.alberg30.org on behalf of public-list at lists.alberg30.org> wrote:

    I quickly learned not to tie the downhaul to the halyard or the head of
    the sail. Pulling down on the head of the sail twists the sail at the
    top hank, jamming it on the forestay. That's why I tie the downhaul to
    the top hank. A clove hitch around the body of the hank secured with a
    half hitch seems to work fine.

      - George

    On 9/27/17 10:08 PM, Rod Symmes via Public-List wrote:
    >   <<< Guess that I could install grommets along the
    > luff, say three inches in from the luff tape and run a line from the top
    > grommet to the foredeck, then use a downhaul just as George does.   Have
    > not seen anyone do that.  Could be interesting.  Will have to ask around
    > about it. >>>
    > Jonathan -  I would advise against doing that.  I don't believe it will work well - and here is why.
    >
    > On my previous boat I had hanked on foresails and a down-haul that worked beautifully until I too thought I could "improve" it.  My halliard had a snap for the head of the jib and the down haul was also tied to the snap, down to a block at the stem and back to the cockpit, as someone mentioned earlier.  Because that down haul was not restrained, if the wind was just right, it would whap whap whap at the back of the jib.  I thought I would fix that by clipping each ( ?? senior moment) on the luff of the jib over both the fore stay and the down haul as I installed it thus containing the down haul line.  My thinking was that should work - it will be coming down with the sail.
    >
    > WRONG  !   By the time the jib was half way down, the ( senior moments ) were piling up at the foot of the stay and the down haul was having to slide through them all.  The friction became so great I could not get the jib all the way down.  Grommets would bind on the line even worse.  Also,  you would have to re-thread that line each time you change jibs.  Not convenient or quick.
    >
    > With the down haul loose to fly from the head to the stem block, it was quick and easy and, while lowering sail, if pulled down snugly and cleated, even a big genoa would usually stay inside the lifelines until I could deal with it.
    >
    > Bonus Feature:  the halliard can never get lost up the mast.
    >
    >
    > Happy sailing.
    >
    >
    > Cheers,     Rod            P.S.   Is that  (senior moment) called a barrel snap ?????   (-:
    >
    > ~~~~_/) ~~~~~~~~~~
    > ~~~~~~~_/) _/) ~~~~~~~
    > ~~_/) ~~~~~~~~~~~~
    >
    >
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       I think how evening follows morn;            gdinwiddie at alberg30.org
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       So many I love were not yet born.                          also see:
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______________

Jeffrey Fongemie     