My in-mast furling is a nightmare

[SailingHarmonie]

Originally Posted by Loredo

No need for an orange warning sign. I've got a brain provided with memory and can remember to turn a knob to release pressure before furling.

Everybody remembers things. Right up until they do not.

[Subtandard]

Has anyone found the kit to make the conversion shepard talks about? I have the same system with a broken part (after only 31 years!). I would rather do the upgrade than just replace the part if I can find the kit.

[sepharad]

Ahhh my friend, no such luck. Not only do they not sell such an upgrade kit. When you contact Selden directly, they have no idea what you are talking about.

I DO HAVE all the original documents for the mast when it was sold under the kemp name. Maintenance, upgrade instructions, even the original sales folder.

Let me know if any of that is of use to you.

After a world of grief I had a Harken battcar system installed and got a fully battened main.

Yanked out all the guts. Riveted a metal track the length of the mast, stuck in the battcars and bingo bango the damn sail never gets stuck.

[OneBoatman]

Not sure what you mean by the sail gets stuck. My Pearson 386 was converted for in-mast furling shortly after Ted Hood invented it sometime in the mid 80's which some people went for without replacing the original mast. A full length cowl was riveted on to capture the sail internal I believe are Selden. To port it also was made with a separate full length slot which accepts a #7 beaded luff accommodating a spare mainsail or a trysail. Your picture shows you also have a spare slot. Originally I thought I would hate it, but after 13 yrs I came to love it. Assuming you don't have a mechanical problem or a part is broken or missing from your rig, the golden rules are: 1) tune your rig for just the slightest amount or no pre-bend of the mast as too much may cause the internal foil to sag and the sail to bunch when furling. 2) Deploy the sail when ~30-40 degrees off the wind 3) When ready to furl, come into the wind just as you would for dropping a conventional main. Steps 3-5) are critical for success.4) Keep light tension on the outhaul as you furl the sail. 5) Do not furl when off the wind. Side note: too much back stay tension can aggravate the function of a roller furler on the headstay by overloading the swivel and bearings.

[OneBoatman]

A sail not made for in-mast furling ie, not having a nearly straight luff, will not work properly with an in-mast system.

[sepharad]

By stuck I mean it took over 2 hours for 2 men to raise the sail using every trick in the book, inch after inch. Lowered just fine and then was immediately completely stuck again trying to hoist.

Rigger said the thing was broken inside.

It was notorious. Selden after buying the company had so many complaints they designed a retrofit kit that completely changed not only the interior parts, but the actual system by which the sails were furled.

Selden immediately changed all their further production to an entirely different interior design.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by OneBoatman

Not sure what you mean by the sail gets stuck. My Pearson 386 was converted for in-mast furling shortly after Ted Hood invented it sometime in the mid 80's which some people went for without replacing the original mast. A full length cowl was riveted on to capture the sail internal I believe are Selden. To port it also was made with a separate full length slot which accepts a #7 beaded luff accommodating a spare mainsail or a trysail. Your picture shows you also have a spare slot. Originally I thought I would hate it, but after 13 yrs I came to love it. Assuming you don't have a mechanical problem or a part is broken or missing from your rig, the golden rules are: 1) tune your rig for just the slightest amount or no pre-bend of the mast as too much may cause the internal foil to sag and the sail to bunch when furling. 2) Deploy the sail when ~30-40 degrees off the wind 3) When ready to furl, come into the wind just as you would for dropping a conventional main. Steps 3-5) are critical for success.4) Keep light tension on the outhaul as you furl the sail. 5) Do not furl when off the wind. Side note: too much back stay tension can aggravate the function of a roller furler on the headstay by overloading the swivel and bearings.

I had that same system on Pearson 365 some decades ago and hated it. We got rid of it after a couple of years and never looked back. It's possible we never learned to use it correctly.

However, I bought my current boat in 2009, and it had a Selden in-mast furling system. I expected to hate it, but I could not find a large cruising boat in Europe for sale without in-mast furling, so I relented and bought.

This system is totally different, and it took some time to get the hang of it. And it took some time to learn how to maintain and lubricate it properly, how to tension the foil correctly, how to set the backstay tension.

Now I love it! With a laminate sail, properly lubricated and set up, operated properly, it works like butter, and in all weather. If I were building a custom boat, I might not choose in-mast furling, but it would be a hard choice. This system is especially good for offshore sailing in bad weather. Not much needed for coastal sailing.

An old sailing friend of mine who has owned a lot of interesting boats including a Swan 90, spent a few summers on my boat, using this system, and when he went to buy his latest boat, only looked at boats with Selden in-mast furling, so much he liked it after using it for a while.