Staysail to a furler?

[waterworldly]

I have a staysail that is hanked and would like to convert it to a furler. Any idea of the cost, including a new sail? This is on a 52' ketch. The reason we are considering it is to clear the forward deck of the boom and make it more useable and easier to naviagate (the forward deck) when sailing. Thanks for any advise.

[Southern Star]

Waterworldly, converting to furling won't eliminate the boom - you will end up with a club footed staysail with furling. You can eliminate the boom by installing some track and sliding blocks on the side decks at the appropriate location for the stay sail - if you install furling as well, it will allow you to reduce the staysail to a storm jib size and maintain the appropriate sheeting angles.

I have had both hank-on and furling staysails and there are arguments in favour of both - the hank-ons are certainly going to be trouble free, although good quality modern furling systems such as Furlex and Profurl will be up to the task. The advantages to furling are, of course, that you can stay off the foredeck in bad conditions and you can vary the size for wind conditions.

Having said all of that, the cost of converting the sail to furling will not be prohibitively expensive - it will be the cost of everything else that will drive up the cost. If you decide to forego furling, you could install stand-up blocks at the appropriate location for your stay sail and save a great deal of money.

Brad