Ben Ainslie "rescued" from a charter boat. ;-)

[europaflyer]

Originally Posted by boatman61

Trouble with in mast furlers is going round in circles does not solve the problem the way it does with a genoa..

Been there, done that... and it's the reason I would never fit in-mast furling!

Remember reading (on here I think) about someone who had the same problem and worked it through by rolling the sail up from the clew working forwards... I think if the wind was too strong for that my strategy might be to send someone up the mast and wrap the sail up close to the mast from head to foot using a halyard spiralled round the mast. Not a fun job but what's the alternative... cutting the sail in two like Sir Ben apparently did?

Anyone any experience of sorting a jammed in-mast furler out?

[DefinitelyMe]

Yea i don't really understand this story. I don't see how a problem with the mainsail furling should cause the boat to be at significant risk of foundering. Did he not have an engine, or an anchor? Was he not able to make any ground to windward under genoa alone? I just don't get it - the guy is arguably the best sailor in the world! Did he just have a brain fart?!

[DefinitelyMe]

Originally Posted by europaflyer

Been there, done that... and it's the reason I would never fit in-mast furling!

Remember reading (on here I think) about someone who had the same problem and worked it through by rolling the sail up from the clew working forwards... I think if the wind was too strong for that my strategy might be to send someone up the mast and wrap the sail up close to the mast from head to foot using a halyard spiralled round the mast. Not a fun job but what's the alternative... cutting the sail in two like Sir Ben apparently did?

Anyone any experience of sorting a jammed in-mast furler out?

Yea it happened to me once when i was sailing in a force 7 off the Isle of Wight in a Feeling. It was already reefed when we decided to take in more sail so we couldn't just drop the halyard. Ended up un-tying the clew of the sail, wrapping the whole thing around the mast and then sending someone (me) aloft to lash it above the spreaders where it couldn't be wrapped. Fortunately because it was already partially reefed i didn't have to go too high!

Since then, i have been very wary of in-mast furlers. I wouldn't touch one for my own boat if someone agreed to give me the whole thing - mast, sails and all for free!

[europaflyer]

Originally Posted by DefinitelyMe

Yea it happened to me once when i was sailing in a force 7 off the Isle of Wight in a Feeling. It was already reefed when we decided to take in more sail so we couldn't just drop the halyard. Ended up un-tying the clew of the sail, wrapping the whole thing around the mast and then sending someone (me) aloft to lash it above the spreaders where it couldn't be wrapped. Fortunately because it was already partially reefed i didn't have to go too high!

Since then, i have been very wary of in-mast furlers. I wouldn't touch one for my own boat if someone agreed to give me the whole thing - mast, sails and all for free!

Thanks, useful to know that it can be done. I was a bit surprised at Ainslie's having to cut it, but maybe being a racing type he just defaults to the most macho solution without really thinking things through... although there's probably more to the story than we have been told.

[Rubikoop]

I wasn't there when it happened but a charter guest somehow managed to pull a few feet of the partially furled sail and furler out of the mast slot. It was just a few feet and nothing like the photos of this incident. Riggers worked on the boat for hours with shims and pry bars before giving up and wrapping the sail around the mast and sending it back to the base. At the dock a couple of pretty skilled guys and another couple of riggers tried a variety of things to remedy the problem. In the end the sail was cut off. The mast was pulled and a new foil for the furler was installed before re-stepping the mast. The forces of the aluminum mast slot squeezing on the furler are substantial. Fairly quickly the labor cost of fighting with it surpasses the cost of just cutting the sail and moving forward. Time is especially precious in the charter industry.

There is a huge difference between a jammed inmast furler and the actual furler itself pulled out of the mast. Many here seem to be interchanging the two. A jammed furler can be dealt with and nearly always resolved with a guy in a bosuns chair.

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[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by europaflyer

Anyone any experience of sorting a jammed in-mast furler out?

I do. I've had two jams in five and half years (and 12,000-odd miles).

The first was when I first had the boat and didn't understand how to operate it (proper tension on the outhaul, and correct boom angle). It was a bad jam. We wrapped up the sail with a halyard and motored into port (fortunately we were just in the Solent and not far out to sea).

After kind instruction from someone on here, we worked it loose by gently pulling down on the boom while working the furler.

The second time was in September, '13, on a fast Channel crossing. I don't know why it happened; it was just a little one, quickly worked out (5 minutes) with the same technique (tension the leech with the vang and work the furler).

Otherwise, trouble free. When I was buying my boat, I would not have chosen in-mast furling, but there was no choice -- up here large cruisers with normal battened mains (anything over 50') just don't exist. I have come to like it with time and experience and for this latitude -- the disadvantages disappear in strong weather, and the advantages become really desirable.

For lower latitudes, I would prefer a regular battened main, however.

My new mainsail will have short vertical battens and the leech will be straight, rather than hollow like regular furling mains. We shall see how much performance I get back from that; the sailmaker promises a huge difference.


Note that Sir Ben's situation does not appear to be an operator error, but gear failure -- the foil is pulled out of the mast. Sir Ben's choice of a furling main on his own boat will tell you something about how popular they are in the UK, home to some of the world's best sailors.

[europaflyer]

Thanks for sharing the experience Dockhead.

All very well you whingeing about your latitude in the solent, you should try overwintering 'oop north like' bit parky here at the moment... and FWIW I haven't seen any high latitude charter boats with in-mast furling, at least not any in the UK. I can definitely see the appeal for a private owner with a big boat sailing shorthanded though. How on earth anyone manages to singlehand something like a Challenge yacht I don't know.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by europaflyer

Thanks for sharing the experience Dockhead.

All very well you whingeing about your latitude in the solent, you should try overwintering 'oop north like' bit parky here at the moment... and FWIW I haven't seen any high latitude charter boats with in-mast furling, at least not any in the UK. I can definitely see the appeal for a private owner with a big boat sailing shorthanded though. How on earth anyone manages to singlehand something like a Challenge yacht I don't know.

In-mast furling (at least with a hollow leech) sucks in light wind, because you lose a lot of power compared to a roachy battened main.

But "up here" (maybe not compared to you, but we're still above 50N for God's sake!) we don't have that much light wind. In 20 plus, in-mast furling really pays for itself. The shape if anything gets better as you reef, and it's so easy to reef and unreef (you don't have to head up into the wind, which can be horrifying in strong conditions) you can continuously adjust the sail to keep just the right amount of canvas up.

If you're reefed down and it calms down for a while, you don't hesitate to let out more sail and take off, because you know that if it pipes up again, it's no problem to reduce sail again. So different from a large battened main, which is a whole production to change sail area, so you just don't change sail area much unless you've got a large energetic crew on board.

So, like I said, I wouldn't want it in the Caribbean or in the Med, but I already prefer it for up here. If the new mainsail gives back as much power as the sailmaker promises, I may start to prefer it altogether.

[europaflyer]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

In-mast furling (at least with a hollow leech) sucks in light wind, because you lose a lot of power compared to a roachy battened main.

But "up here" (maybe not compared to you, but we're still above 50N for God's sake!) we don't have that much light wind. In 20 plus, in-mast furling really pays for itself. The shape if anything gets better as you reef, and it's so easy to reef and unreef (you don't have to head up into the wind, which can be horrifying in strong conditions) you can continuously adjust the sail to keep just the right amount of canvas up.

If you're reefed down and it calms down for a while, you don't hesitate to let out more sail and take off, because you know that if it pipes up again, it's no problem to reduce sail again. So different from a large battened main, which is a whole production to change sail area, so you just don't change sail area much unless you've got a large energetic crew on board.

So, like I said, I wouldn't want it in the Caribbean or in the Med, but I already prefer it for up here. If the new mainsail gives back as much power as the sailmaker promises, I may start to prefer it altogether.

Hmm, you're almost selling it to me! I had assumed it wouldn't shape that well when reefed, but shows what I know. Trouble is, I just like slab reefing too much, the the mechanics of it can be so simple, if not always the execution. And I would never be able to get the idea of a serious jam at just the wrong moment out of my mind, whatever the statistics say. Still, I'm glad it works for you.

[Fiveslide]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Note that Sir Ben's situation does not appear to be an operator error, but gear failure -- the foil is pulled out of the mast. Sir Ben's choice of a furling main on his own boat will tell you something about how popular they are in the UK, home to some of the world's best sailors.

Thank you for this. I didn't start this thread so Ainsley's skill could be questioned. He had a failure, he handled it. The interesting bits of the story are in whom it involved and where it took place, nothing about seamanship.

I particularly like Suijin's comments about him not using his jibs... With crew aloft.

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