Reefit Furlers

[banyandah]

Originally Posted by islandplanet

For a couple of relatively small countries, Australia and New Zealand really impress me with the quality of their gear.

We're island countires with diverse conditions that built its trade upon the sea. Plenty of avid sailors down this way.

I'm presently coming out the gorgeous Gordon River aboard the Stormbreaker, surrounded by world heritage rainforest and not a soul in sight. What could be better!

[Jim Cate]

G'Day Windborne,

Just went down and had a look at your boat. She seems to be in good nick and all appears shipshape. So far the crowd of boats that have arrived for the Folk Music Festival have not encroached on that area, so she should be safe! Nice looking boat, too! I didn't know that Jon Sayer had built boats that were not to his own design. Incidentally, Jon didn't build our boat. A great shipwright named Gary Mcaulay and his wife built her for their own useage. Jon made the comment to us that "one couldn't pay someone enough to do that sort of detail work" and we feel fortunate to own her.

But I noticed that you had the same sort of older Furlex that we have, and I wondered just what was wrong with it to make it irreparable? Ours seized up last year and I thought it was a goner. I was able to revive it temporarily by flushing the bearings with engine oil and then regreasing them. Then later when we had the mast out, the rigger was able to disassemble the lower unit. We found that many of the loose ball bearings were way out of round, and some were very rusty (stainless??). There was also still a lot of lumps of dry grease in the races. A good cleaning and some new balls and voila -- works like new!

It seems that I had been under lubricating it for years. The manual says to grease it with their proprietary grease, but fails to say how much is required and I had been too stingy. Isn't easy to force it in via the little slots provided, so I added a grease nipple which makes it easier (and often leads to a mess on the foredeck!).

So, I'm wondering if your furler might be salvageable? Could be worth some effort...

Cheers,

Jim

[Windborne]

Hi Jim,
When I found Windborne in Brisbane the upper bearings were seized and the lower not much better. I managed to free them in the way you described however the top bearing still does not turn freely and I have a spinaker halyard attached around the mast to prevent the halyard wrapping. I had to fit a new forestay and the whole lower assembly fell apart with stripped bolts. The only thing holding it together at the moment is the halyard tension of the sail. The foil sections are all loose around the rivets. I think the money that it would cost to repair would be better spent on a new system. The rigger who supplied the forestay raised his eyebrows when I said we were sailing to Tassie.
Yes, she is a good boat however needs heaps of work, most of which I can do myself.
Enjoy the music festival.
Cheers
Ross

[islandplanet]

For anyone considering a Reefit furler, Island Planet Sails has been appointed the distributor for the US and Canada. I'll have a blog post up with some photos pretty soon.

[ancor]

I am considering to purchase one of these to replace my very old Furlex. Tough choice between the Reefit, ProFurl or Admiral furlers.
Anyone with experience with the Reefit or any of the other ones (particularly Admiral furler)? Would love to hear some feedback.

Cheers

[islandplanet]

Originally Posted by ancor

I am considering to purchase one of these to replace my very old Furlex. Tough choice between the Reefit, ProFurl or Admiral furlers.
Anyone with experience with the Reefit or any of the other ones (particularly Admiral furler)? Would love to hear some feedback.

Cheers

Never heard of the Admiral. Is it also made in Australia. I can't see any advantage to a ProFurl over Reefit, particularly since you live in Australia and Almast (Reefit MFR) is there.

[Owe Hansson]

I replaced an old Seafurl furler with a Reefit about 6 months ago. Very impressed with the Reefit. Price in Aus is good and you can ring and talk to the guy who makes them which I did several times.


Sent from my iPhone using Cruisers Sailing Forum

[ancor]

Originally Posted by islandplanet

Never heard of the Admiral. Is it also made in Australia. I can't see any advantage to a ProFurl over Reefit, particularly since you live in Australia and Almast (Reefit MFR) is there.

Admiral are from Turkey, here is the link. They look very similar to ProFurl, they also look sturdy and simple enough.

Originally Posted by Owe Hansson

I replaced an old Seafurl furler with a Reefit about 6 months ago. Very impressed with the Reefit. Price in Aus is good and you can ring and talk to the guy who makes them which I did several times. Attachment 119074


Sent from my iPhone using Cruisers Sailing Forum

Found the guy somewhat hard to get a hold of initially, but he did call back and we are communicating.


The designs of the furlers seem to become very similar and only the details seem to differ. Bearings, foil connectors etc. Suppose only service and price come into it more now?!

[ancor]

Okay, so I jumped into the deep end and ordered the ReeFit system. It is relatively unknown, so finding good, bad or ugly info was almost impossible. Many people swear by ProFurl, but I made this choice because the system seems solid, well build and locally made to boot.
Will post up pictures and info on it when the mast is all painted, new standing rigging attached, furler fitted and all of it attached back in the boat.

Wish me luck with all that. :-)

[banyandah]

Originally Posted by ancor

Okay, so I jumped into the deep end and ordered the ReeFit system. It is relatively unknown, so finding good, bad or ugly info was almost impossible. Many people swear by ProFurl, but I made this choice because the system seems solid, well build and locally made to boot.
Will post up pictures and info on it when the mast is all painted, new standing rigging attached, furler fitted and all of it attached back in the boat.

Wish me luck with all that. :-)

Banyandah has used the Reefit furler for maybe 20,000 miles. been around Australia twice, cross the Southern Ocean four or five times, around Tassie lots these last three years and it work great. Simple, maintenance free. May not as fancy as the Profurl system, but it's simple design is what we like.
Check us out: JackandJude.com plenty of photos found on the center tab - anchorage guides onthe same menu bar
Hope that helps
Cap'n Jack

[ancor]

Thanks for the info Banyandah, great blog as well.

Received the furler last week and had a good look at it out of the box. My rigger and I are very, very impressed with the quality of these Refit furlers. He (the rigger) had installed a few in the past, but the new batch is a step up from the earlier models which were already a good bit of kit. Now have to battle with a dodgy paint job (by another contractor) on the mast and have to re-do the whole job, but I can't wait to put it all together and set up the Reefit. There will be pictures to follow, but may put this in a new post with additional info on the whole job. Either way, I'll be posting pics and comments about this furler. Very happy! :-)