Why not in boom furling on multi hulls?

[Chotu]

I’m getting older. Getting lazier.

My monohull right now has in mast furling, as well as standard furling for a 135 genoa and solent. Running backstays. Everything is electric. It’s a joy to use. Allows for reduction of sail area very simply, and stowing and deploying sails is a piece of cake.

I’m wondering why catamarans don’t have in boom furling? I can understand why there is no in mast furling, because of the Huge battens and roach On the high aspect rigs.

But why not roll that thing up in the boom?

[GRIT]

Antares has in mast furling as an option.

We toyed with the idea of in boom furling, but man they're heavy! I believe it was 250 lbs for the "offshore" version, which is what we needed for our size boat. We're going to forego the furling boom, and go with a "park avenue" boom, so most of the sail will stow within.

I'd love the unlimited reefing available with in boom furling, and Mack Sails offers that option on Cats, but I'm pretty sure it's not going to happen until I get a few more Greys, up top.

Cheers.
Paul.

[boatman61]

They'll have to drop the booms for that.. or fit a permanent fixed step ladder..
Love to see someone roll that sail in..

[purvisgs]

some do and most (nearly all) multihull rigs/mainsails could be converted to boom furling (relative to buying a new high quality mainsail, not that much more expense added). Might be able to get away with re cutting/modifying your existing sail, depends on the setup. Probably makes more sense to get a new main, or wait until you're ready to buy new sails. I'd start with any good sailmaker (experienced with multihulls) & ask them to recommend hardware/boom furler for the sail they make you



talk to a sailmaker and rigger, or designer of your boat if new

[Chotu]

Thanks everyone, so far. I don’t have a rig yet. That’s why am asking this question. Thinking about what sort of rig to put on the catamaran.

[Sand crab]

I saw a Maine Cat 41 with boom furling. It was for sale last year for about a month until it had a new owner.

[chris mac]

A lagoon 38 that we chartered a couple years ago in Vancouver had in boom furling. It worked quite well. Not well enough that I will upgrade our cat, but if you are rigging from scratch, it might be worth pricing out.

[johnny AoB]

St Francis Catararans have added electic jib furlers and have produced at least one cat with an in-boom furler. IMO 50 ft and above is when these make sense due to the size of the sails. As pointed out above, boom furlers can be heavy and some require you to point into the wind to reel them in, the exception is the boom furler from Schaffer Marine which allows reeling in on any point of sail.

[riki]

I saw quite some cats with in boom furling, one is mine.

[Factor]

The question is not “why not” but rather WHY. Last time I checked. Gravity still works

[GRIT]

Originally Posted by Factor

The question is not “why not” but rather WHY. Last time I checked. Gravity still works

There's always one guy...

Paul.

[a64pilot]

Originally Posted by boatman61

They'll have to drop the booms for that.. or fit a permanent fixed step ladder..

Love to see someone roll that sail in..

I don’t understand what your saying?

I would say the answer is two fold, OK three fold
It goes against current belief’s / methodology, they don’t have them, simply because they don’t have them.

They are more expensive.

Thirdly, there is a performance hit, you do lose some or actually a lot of the ability to control the shape of the sail etc. performance wise I believe a boom furling sail lies in between the mast furling and a conventional sail.
It seems a Cat is more of a Main driven boat than many Mono’s so losing any performance in the Main is a significant performance hit.
My mono as an example is primarily head sail driven.

I wouldn’t expect to see a furling sail of any kind on a race boat for example.

However I assume the main on a Cat to apparently be a difficult beast and I believe it’s why you sometimes see some Cats that rarely sail. Or at least don’t raise the main so often.
Not all of course. I watched one large Cat sail out of Marsh Harbor for example, and rarely do any boats do that.

Plus I have never, not even once seen a single Cat remove their Main for a Hurricane, so I assume it must be a real bear to do so, with it being so high up in the air and all.

[AZUS]

We have in-mast furling on our Antares 44i. When we eventually decide that we've gotten too old to sail as a couple comfortably, we expect to find a 60+ foot cat with crew so we can still keep going. We'll seriously consider in boom furling on that boat.

As to "why" - it depends if you think practically or theoretically. Theoretically, gravity allows you do do all that in-mast or in-boom furling would do. But practically? I find with in-mast furling that it is so easy to deploy and take in sails that I sail more and more appropriately. Depending on the change in wind speed and direction, I may deploy or stow the main, or put on, adjust or shake out a reef a dozen or more times in a 24-hour sail - all by myself in minutes from the comfort (and safely) of my cockpit.

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

I don’t understand what your saying?

I would say the answer is two fold, OK three fold
It goes against current belief’s / methodology, they don’t have them, simply because they don’t have them.

They are more expensive.

Thirdly, there is a performance hit, you do lose some or actually a lot of the ability to control the shape of the sail etc. performance wise I believe a boom furling sail lies in between the mast furling and a conventional sail.
It seems a Cat is more of a Main driven boat than many Mono’s so losing any performance in the Main is a significant performance hit.
My mono as an example is primarily head sail driven.

I wouldn’t expect to see a furling sail of any kind on a race boat for example.

However I assume the main on a Cat to apparently be a difficult beast and I believe it’s why you sometimes see some Cats that rarely sail. Or at least don’t raise the main so often.
Not all of course. I watched one large Cat sail out of Marsh Harbor for example, and rarely do any boats do that.

Plus I have never, not even once seen a single Cat remove their Main for a Hurricane, so I assume it must be a real bear to do so, with it being so high up in the air and all.

I am 6ft 2 and strain to tidy the main in its stack pack, eyeline is just above boom height and theres zero safety up there in a seaway with the boom whipping back and forth.. so your standing on a roof 10ft minimum above the water on a 45ft Lagoon and trying to crank down the sail.. unless of course you have an electric boom furler system, then you just have the boom angle and speed of sail drop to worry about so it does not jam against the mast.. if you can see it from your station.
Thats why theres 3 mast steps at the mast, so you can climb up to attach the uphaul.

[Row Bear]

I have in mast furling on my Belize 43; boat was bought from previous owner.
The mast is taller and the boom lower to partially compensate for no roach. I am grey haired. With an electic winch at helm furling is easy and fast. Can be adjusted to any sail area. One person on deck can reef. It is brilliant. Coincidentally Mack Sails cut me a new main last year.