In-mast vs in-boom furling

[Pete7]

Originally Posted by daletournier

There's 3 guys here that have extensive experience cruising with inmast furlers and have previously owned normal slab reefing boats. All 3 present real world experiences.

Even more of us thinking "here we go again"

I wasn't sure about in mast reefing at first. However, after a 4 hour test sail on the boat I was convinced that for short handed work (me doing it, the wife sunbathing) that it will do very nicely.

We like coastal cruising, but it means the coast plays tricks with the wind requiring frequent sail adjustments particularly around headlands or were valleys meet the sea. Being able to reduce the main by just pulling by hand on a rope is both quick and simple as is letting it back out a short time later.

12 years on and I would now actively search for in mast reefing if we ever changed the boat.

[BenBowSirocco]

It seems apparent to me as an observer of this conversation that all three systems work well when set up properly and skipper/crew are competent and knowledgeable on their operations.

People like what they know because when they know it well and know how to make it work, its a joy to use and becomes reliable for them. It seems far less important which system you choose than to know that system well (a result of training and experience) and know how to maintain and use it smoothly.

Part of this also may be that you would benefit from taking a sailmaker sailing with you after you purchase the boat, a rigger, or highly experienced skipper. I had a sailmaker out on my boat because he had become a friend of mine and I learned more in a couple hours sailing than I would have ever guessed, despite having sailed on the boat a couple thousand miles.

An example of my point is that I was part of a delivery crew on a Dufour A9000, a 40' admirals cup boat. Its mast is 65' tall and it carries quite a lot of sail, a very powerful boat. Reefing and sail handling on that boat was a carefully worked out process. If you did something out of order, nothing worked right and it was a total disaster- but if you followed the order of operations carefully, it was no more difficult than my 30' boat with its 37' mast. The systems in place worked well- but you had to know the process and follow it step by step, no shortcuts.

[a64pilot]

See, my guess is not ever having sailed a Cat that they get the majority of their propulsion from the main, where my boat is head sail driven.
If that’s correct then a Cat won’t do anything to decrease main sail performance as that would kill sailing performance, so no in mast or in boom.
However, and I’m not beating on Cats, but that may partially explain why they seem to often motor, if they aren’t going far, and raising and putting away the main is a lot of work, then they just won’t do it, it’s not worth it. I wouldn’t either.
In boom and I assume in mast is dead easy. Yes I turn into the wind, but furling is simply holding onto a Milwaukee drill until the sail is completely in the boom. If we are staying overnight, then you disconnect the Halyard of course, if not then don’t quite furl completely and leave some of the sail in the track and raising it is just holding that Milwaukee drill again.
Want to reef? Just a few seconds of the drill to roll up as much sail as you desire, you have an infinite number of reefing points and don’t leave the cockpit.
You only leave the cockpit to connect / disconnect the Halyard and to start the sail in the track.

There are two of us, but in truth I’m single handing. She helps of course, but she isn’t into sailing

[guyrj33]

WOW some pretty strong opinions.
In my experience, in mast furlers are easy on the Amel I sailed, difficult on the Jeanneu I sailed. Sail shape suffers.
in boom furler on the Sabre I sailed to Bermuda worked well with good sail shape, boom angle to mast was critical for rolling the sail up.
I have a stack pack like system on my boat, I'm very happy with it and personally would avoid any boat with in mast furling.

[DEAN2140]

Elvstrom makes vertical battened sails for in mast furling for better sail shape. I would try to find someone who has used these to see how they perform.

[daletournier]

There are two of us, but in truth I’m single handing. She helps of course, but she isn’t into sailing

Now here's something I can relate to

[CAPAZ]

will add my experience with in mast. We bought a 50 ft steel cutter from NZ with an older in mast system driven by a hydraulic pump/worm gear that can be controlled from the cockpit. So far in 4 years we have sailed 10,000 mi, most recently Seattle to Pohnpei. We have had 2 jams that we were able to resolve from the deck level, both occurred from not keeping the outhaul tension at a tight level when furling. Positives are we can furl from the cockpit alone, have been able to do in 30+ knots without waking my lovely wife, and we can get any size sail we choose. Negatives are the sail shape is poor, so for higher performance seeking sailors might be no fun. Also really great for going out for a quick sail or short run to another anchorage as putting out sail takes about 2 minutes.

would I fit one if setting up a boat?.....not sure I would not throw it under the bus, especially if newer systems and sail design/materials are available.

just my 2 cents

rh

[tml]

We installed a Schaefer furling boom in 2015 on our 44' cutter. Part of an on going " geezer up" project. Looked at Leisurefurl at the same time. Went with Schaefer as it is much more forgiving both up and down. You absolutely want an electric windless particularly if trending towards the geezer category. Full battens give acceptable sail shape but I'm not racing around the buoys either. Really shines when its time to reef easy and from the cockpit.
If you do have a problem its on deck where you can deal with it. Single handing offshore I would not want to deal with a sail stuck in the mast. Without in boom furling I would have to consider giving up the way I sail.
Key is a quality installation.
Tom

[johnnyH]

There is a lot of good advice on this issue butr dont know if one size fits all so iI will share my experience. I have single handed my catamaran more often than I would like using a stack pack and lazy jacks. I found it to be a terrible system whether alone or not. going onto the bimini top to lead the sail out in pitching seas and keeping the boat in the wind is dangerous. The stack pack also has issues with dry rotting, rips from the battens, and adjustments to lazy jacks. I also have a single haul with in-mast furling that is 23 years old now. it is an awesome system. It is easy safe and fast. Boom furling is expensive on a retrofit. The best of all worlds in my humble opinion is in-mast furling

[Medved]

Originally Posted by johnnyH

There is a lot of good advice on this issue butr dont know if one size fits all so iI will share my experience. I have single handed my catamaran more often than I would like using a stack pack and lazy jacks. I found it to be a terrible system whether alone or not. going onto the bimini top to lead the sail out in pitching seas and keeping the boat in the wind is dangerous. The stack pack also has issues with dry rotting, rips from the battens, and adjustments to lazy jacks. I also have a single haul with in-mast furling that is 23 years old now. it is an awesome system. It is easy safe and fast. Boom furling is expensive on a retrofit. The best of all worlds in my humble opinion is in-mast furling

If you could spec your cat with in-boom from factory... would you do that or still go with in-mast?

[S/V Illusion]

Originally Posted by Medved

So the only thing that does not make sense is how come expensive ocean sailing yachts like Discovery, Amel, Oyster use in-mast. At those prices I am sure they can afford to provide an in-boom, and yet that is not what they choose to do. This is what is not connecting for me.

Fitting decisions are not unilaterally made by manufacturers of semi-custom boats but rather by preference of the buyer, many of whom don't know the difference(s).



When we ordered our boat, the builder worked closely with us in every detail of construction and outfitting. It's a specious argument to imply the builder chooses the rigging.



I assumed you knew that...

[Pete7]

Originally Posted by tml

Key is a quality installation. Tom

Agreed and quality sails. One problem with in mast dacron sails is they are neatly rolled inside the mast out of the weather and sun. So even after a decade they look clean and tidy. Stretched to buggery mind, but look good, until you are out in strong winds and you see the real shape. So folk hang on to them for too long. How do I know? well that was us, now resolved with a new quality main to match the Genoa replaced a couple of years before.

[BenBowSirocco]

Originally Posted by johnnyH

There is a lot of good advice on this issue butr dont know if one size fits all so iI will share my experience. I have single handed my catamaran more often than I would like using a stack pack and lazy jacks. I found it to be a terrible system whether alone or not. going onto the bimini top to lead the sail out in pitching seas and keeping the boat in the wind is dangerous. The stack pack also has issues with dry rotting, rips from the battens, and adjustments to lazy jacks. I also have a single haul with in-mast furling that is 23 years old now. it is an awesome system. It is easy safe and fast. Boom furling is expensive on a retrofit. The best of all worlds in my humble opinion is in-mast furling

I have heard of this situation more than once, on both cats and mono's. I can not seem to understand why a manufacturer would set up a boat so that you had to climb up onto the bimini to handle sail.. Seems pretty risky.
Being that its a sailing machine- would it not make more sense to have it designed with sail handling as a top priority?
To my logic it seems sail handling should be first and foremost easy and safe to do- which means what you describe is a result of poor design and your completely right the sail pack is a poor choice. But maybe the boom being so high is also not the right choice.

On my old C&C 27 you needed to climb up onto the highly curved cabin top to handle the main and I thought that was silly, so perhaps I am to critical. But I would prefer a relatively non-precarious surface when handling sail.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by S/V Illusion

Fitting decisions are not unilaterally made by manufacturers of semi-custom boats but rather by preference of the buyer, many of whom don't know the difference(s).

When we ordered our boat, the builder worked closely with us in every detail of construction and outfitting. It's a specious argument to imply the builder chooses the rigging. ...

There's some of both buyer and maker in the choice of rig. The maker wants the buyer to have a good experience (so that his boats will have a good reputation so he will sell more), so tries to steer the buyer to what is better. Buyers won't buy what the makers offer, however, if they don't like it. So it takes both, and the makers and buyers of high end Northern European boats seem to be pretty unanimous about liking in-mast furling. If it worked badly, people wouldn't buy it, and the makers would be forced to offer something else, but people do buy it, and few people who spend a few thousand miles with in-mast furling ever go back to any other system.



You think the buyers of €2 million Halberg Rassys or Oysters "don't know the difference"?


And then there are Amels -- the only purpose-built cruising boats specifically designed for ocean crossing and long distance passage making. These are not semi-custom boats at all -- they are absolutely standardized down to the watermakers. You can't buy them without in-mast furling, and I guess there are zero Amel buyers who are not experienced offshore sailors.

[kas_1611]

We have a Selden In Mast Furling Main on our Bavaria and it works brilliantly for what we want and the kind of sailing we do. Sure there is a compromise over sail shape which the purists will scorn but that said there are companies making high performance, vertically battened furling mains with a positive roach that out sail slab reefed mains. If you want performance though you will pay for it.

The only issue we had with it was not due to the sail itself but a mousing line getting blown into the sail as we were furling it during a particularly windy day. I hadn't noticed the mousing line was loose but the sail came back out OK and went in smooth as a rat up a drainpipe.

The secret to in mast furling is which way does it furl? What you say? Well they either furl clockwise or anticlockwise. Ours furls anticlockwise so to make it easier to bring it in, reefing or completely in, kick the boom out to port and keep the wind on the starboard. This depowers the main, keeping drive in the jib hopefully, and sets the sail to furl neatly in without bending around the mouth the wrong way an introducing massive friction. Keep the tension on the outhaul and furl in on the furling line (we have a continuous line to the cockpit). Voila, sail reefed or furled no problems.

The other useful trick is to mark on the kicker where the optimum boom angle is. Should be just less that 90º. Not essential as you can do it with the boom sheeted down but better if you kick it up.

As for sailing with an in mast furler well hull speed says you can get a 40ft cruiser to open up without too strong a breeze and I say the infinite adjustability for reefing means you can maintain performance (be that speed or comfort) better than a slab reefer. Again there is a knack to sailing with this kind of sail and that is to forget a lot of the traditional sail setting. Think of it as a reverse head sail and use the outhaul more to shape the sail and fly it like a jib or genny. They will still twist and you can shape them very well even in light airs to get the most out of them.

Those that slag them off probably have never actually sailed with them, or had a bad experience, but like everything in life one man's gold is another's turd. I've sailed all 3 systems and all 3 have pros and cons but for easy coastal cruising I love my in mast furler and wouldn't swap for all the tea in china.

Keiron