Furling Mainsail or Not ?

[Lagoon4us]

Originally Posted by K_V_B

Not. To sound to pedantic, but north of Trogir I only remember mountains, no bay, not even a lot of water...

TROGIR is quite large, it is made up of new and old cities, there are bridges connecting over water, essentially FROM THE SOUTH the island of CIOVO has a bridge going over to the forted old city of TROGIR we are tied to the quay of THAT old city. OK?

There are bays and anchorages all around TROGIR (old city) but sadly you cannot get under the bridges unless in a dinghy.

We are on a yacht so any reference to North is a reference from our current position, NOT to be taken 'as the crow flies' that's just silly and being pedantic.
Cheers Frank

[micah719]

Lag, How was dinner?

I can't get out there at the moment so you'll have to enjoy yourself on my behalf...I want to know how much fun I've been having. Hey, I think I've just invented the surrogate vacation...must patent the idea immediately.

[Lagoon4us]

Originally Posted by micah719

Lag, How was dinner?

I can't get out there at the moment so you'll have to enjoy yourself on my behalf...I want to know how much fun I've been having. Hey, I think I've just invented the surrogate vacation...must patent the idea immediately.

Needs to be another thread for this, Croatian Cuisine is not great, in the north near Funtana it's better due to the Italian influence.......

[micah719]

Ah, so that's why I didn't sleep so well...dinner was dodgy.

Back to furling-mainsail-type talk:

Any chance of seeing how those racing lateens handle jibing?

[Lagoon4us]

Food isn't dodgy it's just very honest and basic, the olive oil is delicious...

The sail is loose footed and the boom swings port to stb around the mast, the end of the boom is controlled by the block at the front, it would position the boom as well as give downhaul.
I'm sure there is lots of Lateen sites on the net, i've never sailed such a rig, the pic's show a fair bit.
Cheers Frank

[micah719]

Lots of web info on lateens, balanced and standing lugs, even some crab-claw, but not having much luck with the dipping lug: problem being that it is a powerful sail that needs some careful handling, and the folks seem to prefer the tamer traditional rigs, or go bermudan.

The options for a dipping lug is the Beer lugger trick of tacking/jibing yard & sail around forward of the mast, but could also have the tack purchase on a lanyard hooked to stem/bowsprit that can go around aft of the mast. The beauty of a versatile but cheap rig, with a different set of compromises. Being currently boatless and waterless and having difficulty finding solid info, I have to dig for info. But, we're way away from furling mainsails, so I better shut up now and take my offtopic questions elsewhere.....

[Lagoon4us]

I'll be in STH CROATIA for another 6 weeks before clearing towards TURKEY for winter, i'll photograph and post whatever i can see. Start a thread for postings.
Cheers Frank

[micah719]

Thanks Frank, happy sails.

[corblimeyriley]

Any thoughts on boom roller reefing or should this be a new thread?

[corblimeyriley]

Trying to bring this debate alive again. I have a 1982 Dufour 31 which we bought last year as a couple new to yachting and retirement. It has a nice new Volvo Penta 40 hp which kind of makes it a poor man´s Nauticat. However , as we move away from exploring Ibiza and Formenteras´ enchanting coastline to island hopping in less than perfect weather, I have become aware that my main sail is my best friend so long as I can keep it under control. Traditional slab reefing with the foot of the sail in a groove in the boom was the state of the art in 1982 (I suppose) but I don´t want to get out of the cockpit so I am investigating a reefing system for ¨retired geezers¨. Any thoughts most welcome. As an after thought, it, it occurs to me that I might be the proud owner of a soon to be ¨classic¨. So maybe I should just make everything work as well as it used to and so add (ho ho) value.

[minaret]

Originally Posted by corblimeyriley

Any thoughts on boom roller reefing or should this be a new thread?

Boom reefing is great and the only way to go for a furling retrofit. But in a boat your size I would think traditional slab reefing is just fine. It would cost you a lot of money to go to boom furling, and the payoff just isn't there IMHO.

[sgtPluck]

Was reading this recently which covers the options for boom furling:

Practical Sailor - In-Boom Furling: Five Systems - Tips Article

I single-hand and would enjoy not having to leave the cockpit to reef, but it does seem like any of these systems would be an expensive retro-fit.

A cheaper (although clutter-creating) alternative would be to have a full jiffy-reefing system that allows reefing the luff and leech from cockpit. I've seen and used these on bareboat charter Beneteaus and it seemed to work fine.

[corblimeyriley]

Thank you sgtPluck. What is a jiffy-reefing system?

[sgtPluck]

No problem.

It is just a name for a variety of systems that use good old-fashioned lines, blocks, cleats etc to make slab reefing a less manual process.

Some systems only have lines led to grommets at the leech to ease that process (I have that) some will allow you to put a whole reef in just by winching in one line in the cockpit (and easing halyard of course) The bareboat charter Benetaus all have that in my experience.

[rtbates]

Like most things it depends. My ONLY experience with an in mast furler was on an 86' ketch.Prior to entering port the crew started to reduce sail. Apparently there was so much friction in the main system it took two of the strongest crew on a grinder. Neither one individually could get it done. Both had to crank on the winch handle which was the better part of two feet long...

I wasn't too impressed.. If we had been reefing for a blow I doubt it would have ended well...

Hopefully yours won't be so bad...Be very aware of friction in the system..

Reef early and deep. It's quite easy to let out sail, just be very careful that the furling line is wrapped around something substantial in order to keep enough friction so that the wind doesn't pull it all out...

good luck