Am I Right to Hate the Idea of a Furling Main: Jeanneau 45DS

[gr8trn]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

You think Oysters and Hinkleys are build for seamen? Well, I guess there will be some that own one but I haven't met them yet. It is my impression that these are bought to show off in the marina or to impress potential customers when they are invited for an afternoon sail or drink aboard the owners yacht.

We actually slow down a bit when we overtake them because we don't want to embarrass them too much I heard Oyster threatened to stop sponsoring the ARC after they had a humiliating defeat by a Sundeer 64. Jimmy Cornell fixed this by giving the Sundeer64 such a handicap that it could never win again

But seriously, I think the choice for in-mast furling for new boats is made by salesmen and not by the designer. My guess is that offering it with in-mast furling "proves" it is an easy to handle boat or something.

cheers,
Nick.

My goodness Nick,
If you put the pedal to the metal, can you and your Sundeer 64 beat a Gunboat cat too? Just kidding, I mean you really could lighten up on the folks that choose roller furling, especially the folks that choose a dock queen for their intended purpose. What did they ever do to you except pay a lot for a boat and help keep boat values on the higher side? I have read more folks admit to us on this thread that they would never ever consider IMF mains until they had one. Even with the downsides, overall they admitted that they would choose it. Although you will never do so, and would likely not admit it even if you surprised yourself, I think the balance of this thread speaks for itself in terms of helping out the OP. And I am sure your posts have been a significant help if he decides to be a real sailor.

Good Stuff!
Greg

[s/v Jedi]

Originally Posted by gr8trn

My goodness Nick,
If you put the pedal to the metal, can you and your Sundeer 64 beat a Gunboat cat too?

I dunno what they can do... but if we leave our cruising stuff at the dock and find a nice 30 knots of wind, we are able to do a sustained 26 knots through the water (no joke )

But we always sail to windward so we're talking hull-speed in my previous post. A 65' Oyster just doesn't do 12 knots while we have no trouble with that. It's not really a fair comparison because our waterline is the same as hull length while the Oyster has significant overhang and thus a way shorter waterline.

I mean you really could lighten up on the folks that choose roller furling, especially the folks that choose a dock queen for their intended purpose. What did they ever do to you except pay a lot for a boat and help keep boat values on the higher side?

Ah well the folks I wrote about do not read this forum so I can make a little fun of them But before I retired it was their kind that bothered me a lot heheh.. see, I enjoy it

And I am sure your posts have been a significant help if he decides to be a real sailor.

For discussions like this one (and anchors, cat/mono etc) we should author some good posts with a neutral point of view and put them up as sticky so that members who need to know can see the complete picture. May be we need a cruisers version of Wikipedia haha!

ciao!
Nick.

[gr8trn]

We have a winner, 26 knots, Nick wins. "Modern" slab reefing it is, OP, is right to be very afraid of IMF mainsail, he will certainly go too slow. Just jokin'!

Greg

[donradcliffe]

See today's Beneteau423@yahoogroups.com for an enlighted discussion about cruising with in-mast furling.

The first post was from a new owner whose main had jammed, and the reply was from a seasoned cruiser who has used in-mast for several years. The gist of his message was that it worked Ok to start with, but has been jamming after the sail stretched a bit. He ends with

"It is generally a mess. The sail is in otherwise good condition and I will
live with it for a couple of years more. I like the idea of a furling main
(with verticle battens) - the dial a sail feature, but find that in
practice it is not working as well as one would like for the long term. For
cruisers who want to use sails for years, a normally battened main, I fear
might be a better choice, at least in my limited experience."

[gr8trn]

Originally Posted by donradcliffe

See today's Beneteau423@yahoogroups.com for an enlighted discussion about cruising with in-mast furling.

The first post was from a new owner whose main had jammed, and the reply was from a seasoned cruiser who has used in-mast for several years. The gist of his message was that it worked Ok to start with, but has been jamming after the sail stretched a bit. He ends with

"It is generally a mess. The sail is in otherwise good condition and I will
live with it for a couple of years more. I like the idea of a furling main
(with verticle battens) - the dial a sail feature, but find that in
practice it is not working as well as one would like for the long term. For
cruisers who want to use sails for years, a normally battened main, I fear
might be a better choice, at least in my limited experience."

The last statement "at least in my limited experience" might be an important clue?

[S/V Alchemy]

I believe we have had automatic transmissions in cars since at least 1939 (GM's Hydra-matic...although there were many precursors). Until quite recently, received wisdom was that manuals were better for reasons of a) speed, b) economy, c) performance and d) the way you could start a battery-dead manual car by pushing it down a hill.

In the last 10 years or so, however, advances in sports car transmissions have given the edge in these areas to automatics. In small economy cars, the CVT is taking hold. The paradigm has shifted, to make a pun: It's now getting as hard to buy a manual shifting car as it is to get manually lowering windows.

Whether this is all a good thing or not remains to be seen. As a Canadian who has "push-started" more than one frozen car back to life down various rural roads in winter, I prefer systems I can repair or work-around. In the context of this discussion, slab-reefing, horizontally battened mainsails are "manual", and the various types of in-mast are "automatic".

I won't include boom-reefing, because, despite its seemingly ideal midpoint of utility, it hasn't claimed a large part of the mainsail-handling market, whereas many of the "name" boatbuilders have gone with in-mast, perhaps due to marketing rationales based on aging customers for bigger boats, or just out of "follow the leader" behaviour.

Whatever the tenuousness of the analogy, I do not at this stage believe that in-mast can, in most cases, match the performance of traditional, "roachy" mainsails. I do believe there are ways (stackpacks, jacklines, certain batten car designs) to make "manual" main handling more efficient. I also believe that, having sailed in-mast reefing boats in the heaviest winds I've experienced at sea, that they are viable, durable and dependable...not to mention very quick...methods of reducing sail.

While some focus on "not having to leave the cockpit" as a bonus of in-mast reefing, I discount this because everything but the reef lashing can be accomplished on a traditionally rigged boat from the cockpit, and also because I feel that if you can't work on the deck safely, you might have either the wrong techniques of harm reduction or may be not fit to sail in the sort of conditions requiring significant sail reduction. It has to be said: there are some sailors reluctant to swallow the anchor who may be taking on very large cruisers five years beyond their abilities. It's a bit reminiscent of 80-year-olds and driving: Some won't pass those mandatory retests, but the argument that getting half-blind, slow-reacting seniors off the road shouldn't apply because "it will restrict their freedom" doesn't cut it for me. So while the in-mast furling solution may extend the years in which an aging couple may sail, I'm not sure it's a lifetime pass for people who should really consider a trawler...or an RV.

Maybe we will see smaller boats all go in-mast. Maybe slab reefing will follow the hank-on foresail and the gaff rig into niche categories. But I don't see that we are quite at that point yet.