Roller furler main sail

[gonesail]

Originally Posted by Kanani

A Roller furling main can be very hard, to impossible to reef in severe conditions.

once a big jib is full of air and the wind increases it can be quite a struggle to get rolled up (even when things go right). at least you can claw a hanked on jib down but that means going to the foredeck. you can always run a line up inside the hanks and pull it down that way .. maybe even from the cockpit. hanked jibs are also easier to switch out between storm and working and genoa. that being said i do have a 130% roller furling job.

[rebel heart]

That's a really good point in regards to dousing the sail. If I can pinch enough to get the tack to flap for a second or two, I can haul might quick on the downhaul.

I also think that roller jibs are reasons that a lot of people don't have light air foresails (like a drifter / reacher). With a hank, you get a lot more flexible, and again, it's easy to see what's going. This applies to mainsails even more, because of the blackbox nature of a boom furler.

[Jentine]

Originally Posted by rebel heart

Sailing with Lin & Larry Pardey

There are certainly ways to mitigate the risk, but this general tone of roller systems being just as safe and secure as hanks is really beyond me, and is in contrast to all the riggers I know.

And this wisdom is from someone who doesn't see the need for an engine in a sail boat, but has no difficulty asking for a tow into a port.
I like roller furling main and jib and wouldn't sail without either again. Hanking sails on a forestay in a blow is just plain stupid and non furling main sails limits your ability to adjust your sails (infinitely adjust).
As for the poor fellow who couldn't furl the mainsail of the boat he was delivering, I suggest that if you aren't familiar with a particular piece of equipment your familiarize yourself before delivering a boat which requires a 1100 mile offshore journey.

[maxingout]

The last time we sailed to New Caledonia, I met a British yacht that had installed a new roller furling mainsail in New Zealand. When he was making the trip from New Zealand to New Caledonia, he encountered a storm and was unable to reef the main. He had to climb to the top of the mast and cut the sail down. The sail was totally trashed.

I have a bias against in mast furling because I have a catamaran, and I want to have heavy sailcloth to keep my mainsail from blowing out when the wind pipes up. If you want to furl a sail into the mast, it's going to require lighter sailcloth. Since catamarans don't heel over, they don't spill wind out of the sails as easily as on a monohull. I want a very strong mainsail that is up to the task. In eleven years of sailing, we never blew out a sail, but I have seen plenty of in mast furling mains that blew out because they were just too light for offshore work.

[rebel heart]

I never thought about that aspect of a multi hull; it wont heel and naturally de-power itself the way a mono will. Obviously you still reef monos, so the natural heel doesn't do it 100%, but that's still interesting.

Do you notice it in the steerage? Like if you have 10 knots, and you get a gust of 20k in the same direction, does the boat round up into the wind or something?

[luski]

As mentioned earlier in the thread a multihull main sail is built flater and heavier than a monohull mainsail . I think a multihull lends herself to a fully batterned main with slab reefing and idealy a rotating mast, you will have excellent sail shape and they are easy to reef even whilst sailing down wind in a blow. In the med its very fashionable to have in mast or in boom reefing but I think its a waste of hard earned cash which is much better put aside in your cruising stash. But hanked on headsails , gimme a break , who wants to be at the wrong end of a boat in a blow , I've had both and a furling head sail wins everytime.

[rebel heart]

Originally Posted by Jentine

And this wisdom is from someone who doesn't see the need for an engine in a sail boat, but has no difficulty asking for a tow into a port.

You forgot to mentioned one of the most skilled shipwrights of our time, who has built more vessels than you and I have probably sailed on. Beyond that, he wasn't imparting any wisdom; he was making an observation.

If forestays go out more often than other parts of the standing rigging, there's not much argument to that. Either they do, or they're liars. And if it happens more often on boats with roller furlers, again, it's either true, or they're liars.

I leave it for the readers of this forum to imagine whether or not the Pardeys are some foolish lot that have a vested interest in swaying people from furling systems.

[colemj]

"The most common at-sea rigging failures we observe tend to be shrouds or headstays failing due to metal fatigue. The majority seem to be the stays inside roller furling headsails. The weight of the furling drum, foil and rolled up sail swinging around at sea increases the advent of metal fatigue in the wire headstay."

Got to be careful drawing too many conclusions from the above quote. This statement doesn't present any quantitative data or statistical analysis to support either side of the present RF debate. They may have observed the failures on a majority of RF equipped boats simply because the majority of boats they observed had RF equipment. They may even be biased in only "remembering" failures from RF equipped boats since they don't appear to have recorded specific instances. Even if the conclusion that RF equipped boats experience more failures, the cause could be improper maintenance or replacement cycles by the owners and not by the RF equipment itself. I do certainly fault them for drawing the conclusion they do in the last sentence without a shred of actual data to support it. That was just plain sloppy and careless and because they present themselves as experts they should be held accountable to a higher standard.

100% of all rigging failures I have seen have been on boats without RF equipment. What does that tell you? (hopefully not much because I haven't provided any data on the # boats I have seen with failures, the type of boat or its construction materials and scantlings, the condition of the boat, the area and weather in which it is sailed, etc.)

That's what this reader of the forum imagines.

(FWIW, our boat does not have RF equipment)

Mark

[colemj]

Originally Posted by rebel heart

Either they do, or they're liars.

Or they are wrong. Or they have a different opinion. Or they draw different conclusions from incomplete data sets.

It doesn't have to be so polarized...

Mark

[yeloya]

I'd considered seriously the furling main for my cat but gave up soon.. In addition to all what was said, the cats (unlike most of mono's) rely on the main sail's power rather than the gennoa. Fully battened main sail in this case is the only option unless one is just aiming for coastal cruises and goes out only in light breezes.
Agian, another compromise.. comfort Vs. safety/performance. I personally wouldn't trade off the safety factor for comfort..

Cheers

yeloya

[Joli]

I believe most rigging failures are the result of poor maintenance. It is not difficult to look at termination points and the rod or wire to determine if you have a problem. Die penetrant is cheap and easy. Looking at it is even easier.

[Lancerbye]

Well I have a Roller furling/reefing jib and a roller/reefing behind the mast main. The main is loose footed with no boom. I lose a bit in performance but I am not racing so it doesn't matter. I also use a cruising chute for light air. For coastal cruising I would have it any other way.

[maxingout]

Originally Posted by rebel heart

I never thought about that aspect of a multi hull; it wont heel and naturally de-power itself the way a mono will. Obviously you still reef monos, so the natural heel doesn't do it 100%, but that's still interesting.

Do you notice it in the steerage? Like if you have 10 knots, and you get a gust of 20k in the same direction, does the boat round up into the wind or something?

When a gust of wind hits the sails, the boat accelerates. The two keels impart massive directional stability to the boat, and so wind gusts put a lot of stress on the sails and rigging. That's why I checked my rigging and replaced wires with broken strands in Raiatea, Fiji, New Zealand, Australia, Turkey, and Gibraltar in our eleven year circumnavigation. That's also why I have ten ounce sailcloth.

[Joli]

Originally Posted by maxingout

That's also why I have ten ounce sailcloth.

And if the jib is 10oz thats why you put it on the furler. It gets very heavy and it's hard work to brick and store. Our working jib is two ply 10 oz. You don't just toss it on deck and clip it on, you move it with halyards.

[luski]

Originally Posted by colemj

Or they are wrong. Or they have a different opinion. Or they draw different conclusions from incomplete data sets.

It doesn't have to be so polarized...

Mark

I couldn't agree more my friend, just because you've read something in a book doesn't it make it gospol for all of us. I have had one rigging failure and that was my forestay which at the time had traditional piston hanks.Its horses for coarses and you chose whatever system suits your needs.