Roller Furling

[MichaelKMP]

Recently my genoa halyard broke and rather then go up the mast and replace it I decided to use the spinnaker halyard. Before bending on the genoa I unwound the drum as if I were furling the sail. After successfully raising the genoa I found that the roller drum would not rewind the line. Somewhere I missed a step. Does anybody have a suggestion how to fix this?

[Hudson Force]

Originally Posted by MichaelKMP

.... I unwound the drum as if I were furling the sail. ..........

This appears to be the mistake. Normally, unwinding the drum deploys the sail and winding the drum would furl.

[barnakiel]

Beware you may create terrible mess using this halyard this way: it may wrap and lock or even destroy your upper swivel or/and the stay.

b.

[pesarsten]

Something sounds odd! My roller furling has an empty drum when the sail is furled ( wrapped around furler foil) and a full drum when the sail is fully deployed.

[nigel1]

As mentioned in both previous posts, first you need to wind the furling line onto the drum before you can roll the genoa onto the stay.
More importantly, you need to take a good look at the angle between the spinnaker halyard and the forestay. If the angle is very small, there is a good chance that the halyard will wrap around the forestay when furling the genoa.
This can certainly lead to wrecking the forestay.

Take a look at this, will explain the wrap problem
http://www.seldenmast.com/files/597-132-E.pdf

[sneuman]

Originally Posted by pesarsten

Something sounds odd! My roller furling has an empty drum when the sail is furled ( wrapped around furler foil) and a full drum when the sail is fully deployed.

Just the way it should be (must be) to work properly! The genoa sheet unwinds the roller furled sail and the furling line must be taken up then to refurl it.

[MichaelKMP]

Thank you all for your replies. I woke up this morning with that clarity you have before the rest of the day begins to crowd in. Pictured the drum and did a little mental dope slap. My solution is to disconnect the tack shackle and deploy the furling line with sail unfurled on the forestay.
As for using spinnaker halyard as temporary solution I dont anticipate a problem. It rolls on a sheave next to the now empty genoa sheave. Am I missing something?

[azsailor12]

As Nigel said, make sure the halyard doesn't wrap when furling. I've seen that happen on more than one boat with poor setup.

[sneuman]

Originally Posted by azsailor12

As Nigel said, make sure the halyard doesn't wrap when furling. I've seen that happen on more than one boat with poor setup.

Putting a block next to the drum and low can help this problem. I just finished some experimenting that proved it.

[barnakiel]

Originally Posted by MichaelKMP

As for using spinnaker halyard as temporary solution I dont anticipate a problem. It rolls on a sheave next to the now empty genoa sheave. Am I missing something?

Put me on the right tracks ... BUT most spinnaker halyards I have used went thru some sort of "external" or "crane" sheave or block - in order to clear well ahead and above of the whole geneoa system!

If your spinnaker sheave exits just next to your genoa sheave, is it not your JIB halyard you have in mind?

Cheers,
b.

[MichaelKMP]

Thanks to all.
After some mucking about I concluded that manually unwinding the drum halyard with the sail in place around the forestay was best approach. A bit tedious but it worked.
Mike