Furling Main On A Catamaran?

[SCCatSailor]

Originally Posted by sandy daugherty

One more nail in the coffin: an in-mast furling sail keeps a lot of weight high, increasing the loads on the rigging and screwing with the design moments of inertia of the vessel. In my mind, the only possible reason for paying that much money for a little more convenience is to keep the Admiral happy. But the boat's for sale anyway!

I would not consider in-mast furling an asset. At the very least, the additional maintenance must be factored into the purchase price.

I'm with Sandy on this one; I would really question the wisdom of putting that much weight aloft for safety reasons. Seems like the mast could become a great big pendulum. I'd check with the boat's designers and get their opinions.

[banty]

o
OK I'm ready for the slings and arrows of you (real) sailors but as an old fart who
got his first sailboat. A sailboard with lanteen sail in 1952 then on for the next 55 years my mantra is keep it simple stupid. You can tell the happy cruisers by how
their enjoying on the hook in the middle of the big pond a small port where any fixing
is done by the cruiser himself. I quote someone A cruise is a series of repairs at an inconvient time. Give me a junk sail or lug if the term is to repugnent easy to reef
permits you to cariy more sail for those calmer days and longer before reefing because its so easy to reef when the time comes, low center of effort, no rigging to break,easy on mast and boat (free standing) best sail for single handing, for a few lbs. can carry a complete replacment and no sails to store and take up valuable space and weight.no need for jib-spinniker-storm sail etc and may I add it's cheap. Give me a junk rig, minimal electronic or electric dependency if any (it,s great when it works in the middle of nowhere) a bullet proof hull speed is secondary because as already stated on the pond seldom carry full sail anyway add the personal comfort the admeral wants and you have your cat an easy way to convert a cat to junk is a smaller junk on each pontoon gives you many possible sail plans.

OK sling your barbs and arrows.

[Bash]

I think of in-mast furling as a modern alternative to a ketch rig or cutter rig, an alternative that actually reduces weight aloft in comparison to traditional split rigs, while at the same time increasing performance.

what a split rig is about, ultimately, is not having too much sail area to handle in short-handed situations. what in-mast furling is about, ultimately, is not having too much sail area to handle in short-handed situations.

will it perform as well as sloop with full horizontal battens?
no.
will it perform better than a ketch or cutter?
yep.

my in-mast furler makes it possible for a cruising couple in their 50s to handle a rig with more than 1,000 sq ft of sail area without needing crew.

sweet.

[MarkJ]

Originally Posted by lamareverett

except for the fact that the owner has added inmast furling to the main. .
Thanks, Lamar

You can't have a cat with a furling main.

OK I get picked on anytime I pipe up in the Multi section...

but

(and I didnt read all the posts in this one)

A Cat needs a very roachy main to keep the centre of effort (gravity) low.... or you flip and all swim.

Look at any cat sailing or a photo and you will see an extreeme roach and a small fractional jib.

And in mast furling can't do that at all, even with verticle battens

Mark (I'll go off back to the Mono areas

[s/v Jedi]

Bash: I don't understand your post. But I will be glad to demonstrate that Jedi (ketch rigged) will outperform any same length monohull sloop with in-mast furling. And I'm not talking about spinnakers, I'm talking working sails upwind tacking. We will also outperform any catamaran up to 50' length on upwind tacks and many up to our boat length. For reaching and broad reaching we will outperform all but the lightest cruising- and racing catamarans our boat-length (we do up to 26 knots reaching and broad reaching) and we can't do a dead run but so can't most catamarans. Actually, we can with just a symmetric spinnaker.

Also, we have more than 1800 square feet of working sails with huge roach full batten main and mizzen and the whole thing can be handle by a couple in their 70's without the need for crew. All you need is an electric winch.

cheers,
Nick.

[ggray]

One thing I don't think anyone has mentioned is that a fully battened (horizontal battens) main, sail life will be greater as the battens keep the sail from flogging.

[catty]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

Bash: I don't understand your post. But I will be glad to demonstrate that Jedi (ketch rigged) will outperform any same length monohull sloop with in-mast furling. And I'm not talking about spinnakers, I'm talking working sails upwind tacking. We will also outperform any catamaran up to 50' length on upwind tacks and many up to our boat length. For reaching and broad reaching we will outperform all but the lightest cruising- and racing catamarans our boat-length (we do up to 26 knots reaching and broad reaching) and we can't do a dead run but so can't most catamarans. Actually, we can with just a symmetric spinnaker.

Also, we have more than 1800 square feet of working sails with huge roach full batten main and mizzen and the whole thing can be handle by a couple in their 70's without the need for crew. All you need is an electric winch.

cheers,
Nick.

Mmmmmm, A post like this says more about you than your boat. Are you sure you wouldn't like to qualify any of those statements with " to my knowledge " or something similar.

On reading your post one may be excused for concluding that you are a lilly guilder. (trying to be polite here)

May I say its a "nice post" for the multihull section going by past history.

As for in-mast furling, each to there own. For those physically incapable of hoisting and lowering a bloody great main, a furling main is a good option .Keeps people out there sailing.

[s/v Jedi]

Catty: I understand that you don't like mono hull sailors in this forum? I sail(ed) cats with pleasure too. My comments were not just to the best of my knowledge, they are based on my experiences. I admit that Jedi isn't the average ketch on the water but Bash generalized the thing like "every in-mast furling sloop outperforms a ketch" which is certainly not true. The speed comparisons I posted are what we saw over the last 6 years. The Sundeer 64 is designed to plane and go up to 26 knots, no joke, it's just how it is! The upwind data is an educated guess because the cat will go much faster but we point higher to compensate. If you read back you will see that I wrote that a cat of the same hull length will be faster if it's kept light enough... I'm not into the mono-vs-multi argument at all, just into the in-mast furling vs full batten.

Also, I wrote I didn't understand the post. The part I don't understand is where it said that in-mast furling saves weight up the mast and increases performance. I can only see that as meant comparing it to full-batten sails with normal reefing system and I know that you and Bash know that the full-batten system is lighter and faster so I don't understand it. May be you can explain it to me and you don't need to be polite... just call me stupid when you think I miss the obvious, I can take that ;-)

The message that I tried to get across is that you can use an electric winch to hoist a "bloody great main" and even a 90 year old can push that button! You don't need to switch to in-mast furling when you grow older!

cheers,
Nick.

[Jim Cate]

FWIW Bash,
I can ignore lots of arbitrary posts, but when us old farts are maligned I just have to butt in. Ann and I (ages 69 &71) somehow manage to keep our 46' fractional rigged sloop going without either in-mast furling or an electric winch (so far, anyhow!!). Our mains'l is about 660 Sq Ft, bloody heavy construction, 3 full battens and 2 long leech battens. I do need the halyard winch (Arco 40, a pretty lousy winch IMO) for the last 15 feet of hoist, but it really isn't that big of a deal, so I'll add my vote to exclude the in-mast furler for the original poster. Again, IMO the performance hit that a cruising cat would take from such a rig is not an acceptable compromise.

Cheers,

Jim and Ann s/v Insatiable II

[s/v Jedi]

Jim: that's what I mean!! ;-)) People fall prey to the talk of sales-droids to quickly when it comes to in-mast furling!

ciao!
Nick.

[44'cruisingcat]

I think a few people might need to re-read the original post.

There's no debate about whether or not performance has been lost, the question was, how much?

My answer would be: take the boat for a sail. If possible try sailing a similar boat with the standard rig, and compare them.

[Scott730]

Have to chime in here, A catamaran is a totally different breed of boat than a mono. they are not designed for a none Battened main sail. If someone wants a furling system on a cat it has to be boom furling so you can keep the Battens. A lot of what Jedi has stated in a prior post is correct. It is potentially dangerous to change the sail dynamics of a boat that has been designed to use a fully battened and roached main. I would not walk away but run away from this purchase.

[s/v Jedi]

Scott: Happy to see that someone understands what I mean... what I wrote in post #14 in this thread is the best I can do to explain it.

In short: sails should be shaped as close to air-foils as possible to get the best drive out of them (convert wind-force to forward speed). This decreases heeling on mono's and decreases stress/wear in the rigging of multi's with the same forward speed. It also allows the use of less sail-area.
The best thing you can do with your mainsail to increase comfort is to go loose-footed, full battened, hi-tech material like Hydranet (spectra-reinforced dacron) and tri-radial cut. Increased performance equals increased comfort for this part of a sailboat and for a cat it also increases safety.
Knowing how to trim a sail (like how to use the outhaul) is equally important and can't be replaced by throwing money at furling systems.

cheers,
Nick.

[SailFastTri]

Originally Posted by catty

snip

As for in-mast furling, each to there own. For those physically incapable of hoisting and lowering a bloody great main, a furling main is a good option .Keeps people out there sailing.

... And what happens when the wind whips up from a squall and there is a mechanical jam/failure and the furling system won't furl? Is the person who is "physically incapable" going to be able to keep the boat safe?

Furling head-sails have become very reliable but people still experience problems from time to time. IMHO that technology doesn't work as well for mainsails. Shape is one factor already fully discussed here by others. Add the confined in-mast or in-boom surround-factor and it becomes much more complicated/problematic, with fewer options for work-around.

There was another poster in this thread who wrote something to the effect "simple is better" and I tend to agree. Also, electric furling wasn't mentioned but anyone who relies on electrons (electric anything) to keep the boat safe is just asking for trouble (unless there's provision for manual fall-back).

Having said all that - most cruising cats already have much of the performance designed-out of them, and any remaining performance is killed by the cruiser who fills up the hundred-gallon water tanks, uses all-chain rode and takes along all their worldly possessions and toys and tools. Factor in low-aspect skeg keels and they are likely to be motoring or motor-sailing when true wind is forward of abeam or below 10 knots.

[Factor]

Given the incredible ease of a main with batten cars and lazy jacks and single line reefing, I really dont know why you would want the in mast or even in boom systems.