In Mast Furling

[thomm225]

Originally Posted by DoubleWhisky

You just need to have a properly made sail for it, but this is a truth with any system.

Best regards

Thomas

Actually, I'm thinking as any racer would that you need an improperly made sail for it.

[Noreastern]

Laziness. Only good excuse I see with in mast furling.

I am guilty of some laziness myself so I will go with lazy jacks and stack pack type system. Almost as easy to furl and store mainsail as in mast.

I do not want to take a chance with a jam if there is another easy way and I do not want weight up high in the mast.

However I have a manual windless and hand held lead line; )

[Cheechako]

I had it on my Passport 47 and the performance seemed terrible on that boat, except with a deep reef and staysail in 30-35. The boat had a pretty modern cruising shape and a very long waterline... just didnt seem to move well except in blow. I can only attribute it to the wimpy (new) mainsail lacking drive without a roach. I spent a lot of money on extra winches, high end stopers etc to make it easy to reef... it still jammed alot. it's the pits when the wind is piping up and you get jammed. JMHO

[chuckr]

10 years of boat ownership 6 years of full time cruising and thousands of miles and never a jam - in big winds can reef to any size - would have nothing else - and i am not lazy

[Nicholson58]

Originally Posted by azsailor12

To be honest, I've only been on one boat that had in mast furling. As the sail was moving in and out, it made "popping" noises, as if something was getting hung up. I realize that some people prefer lots of gadgets to make things easier, but I prefer simple- less things to break.

Popping - I suspect the furler was slack so it rattled abut the furling cavity.

Our main is electric in-mast. Absolutely love it. I raced for over 20 years and I expected the worst when we bought this boat. We both like operating totally from the cockpit. No on-deck terror dances. At the end of a sail its gone in less than a boat length. Nothing to hoist up our 80 ft mast. The main weighs in around 120 pounds so eliminating the hoist is a time and back saver. The mizzen is in-mast too and the Genoa and cutter staysail also roller furl. Using a Milwaukee 1/2" drive 28 volt right angle drill with winch drive makes handling our large sails manageable. We loose the modern large roach but the center of effort is lower and I made the #1 a bit bigger (135%). We point way better than I expected and our cruise speed is about 9 - 10 knots in a fair breeze. We are made for trade wind reaching and easily break 11 knots often. As long as your main is relatively flat and the draft has not 'stretched' forward you should be able to point well enough.

[Dale Hedtke]

If I was going to design something that would be easy to jam and difficult to fix, it would look a lot like in-mast furling.

We have lazy jacks & a stack-pack sail cover and a Tides Strong Track system plus 4 full battens. I think that we can raise and drop/zip up the sail cover in about the same time as it takes to get the in-mast system put away. True, we have to go on deck, but we also have very good sail shape, a bomb proof reefing system, and I have to believe less weight aloft. I personally would not want in-mast furling. I've sailed enough with them to know.
Our friends have in-mast furling and bought some high tech UK sails that were "glued" together. In the middle of no where during a distance race they were in a storm. The "glue" turned out to be somewhat water soluble. When the sails dried off the main was stuck (reglued in position) neither in nor out. Up the mast a couple of times. UK did replace the sails....

[SimonV]

I have slab reefing on my boat, but given a choice I would love to have in mast furling. I have delivered boats with it and love the ease of use. The only issues I have come across is when the boat had been less than idealy looked after and we had an old out of shape main.

Sent from my GT-N7105T using Cruisers Sailing Forum mobile app

[bobsadler]

Well I might be the one the OP was looking for.

When I bought the boat in NC (U.S.) she had in-mast furling (with manual winches) and was like that when we took her across the Atlantic.

All was well until one evening as the wind came up and we started furling the main. We had got about a 1/3 of the way in only to have the whole thing completely unfurl when a gust hit us. Then we started furling again. It was tiring work.

For the crossing I had myself and two other males (one 50s, one 40s) the younger of whom was a hugely experienced sailor. We were all fit.

When we reached Jersey (UK) I decided that the in-mast system would be fine for coastal cruising in N Europe and probably N America, where youve got an RNLI lifeboat or similar or Coastguard cutter every few miles, but for ocean crossings or remote areas it posed too many risks for a middle aged pair (male 63, female 56).

The idea of having to go up the mast to cut away a jammed sail is bad enough - and the way the sail creased when being furled was always a concern - but not being able to reef in a bad blow is worse.

I looked at various ways of converting the rig to single line reefing but never found a satisfactory solution so in the end I changed it out entirely. I now have a partially battened main. The 1st reef is "slab reefed" put in at the mast and the 2nd and 3rd are "single line" and put in from the cockpit.

I have to say that it's a lot less work than winding the main into the mast though getting the main up requires a bit more effort (though not much as the halyard is doubled).

As far as performance goes I haven't seen much difference but then I'm not racing or anything close.

Was it worth changing - I think so.

[Time2Go]

Hi Dockhead
I'm only reporting what we experienced with this boat on its first
cruise. Maybe there has to be some break in of the system to get it
To operate smoother or perhaps it needed some adjustment but the
Tension on furling line to furl when off the wind was enormous.
The owner decided to head up, apply tension to the out haul
And get a nice smooth and even wrap. I'm no expert on this but if
I had to guess I'd say it had something to do with the sail exiting the mast
And then having to make a sharp bend. Sail shape was never pretty.
Sure was easy to get used to, especially with the electric winches.
I should note that after this cruise one of the in mast halyards had to be replaced because one proud rivet destroyed it.

[Nicholson58]

Originally Posted by Red Sky

Ease the mainsheet, keep slight tension on the outhaul and roll it up.

My Uncle who taught me about sailing a long time ago wouldn't never buy into one of those new fangled roller furling head sails either. And you better have two masts too.

The roller main furler will roll easily if the lead from the clew is good. Too high or too low and the material will bunch or bag. Mark your topping lift for the right spot. Also, make sure the foil is tight enough that it doesn't ride excessively tightly against the mast slot opening. Also be extremely careful that nothing else such as a flag halyard can get sucked in while it is furling. This happened to us once and it is instant disaster. One other time the storm tri-sail halyard was likewise pulled in. We have noticed that winding in the main may work better with port or starboard rotation depending on what side the boom is on. This can effect the friction during winding.

Glad to have your uncle come help hoist our 135% #1 - 280 pounds of 5-layer fusion membrane on an 80 foot mast. Flaked on a grassy field and tightly rolled the bag is 4 feet diameter by 4-1/2 feet long. It is not possible to flake it on deck and stuffed down below would fill the entire salon. This whole discussion depends heartily on the size of the vessel and sails as well as the crew that will operate it and how you will use it. Furling sails were made to make life easy on big boats and for short-handed and older sailors. They are not race equipment on most boats. We never drag wet sails below and we don't put ourselves at risk on a pitching deck. Our boom is 5 feet above the coach roof and the aft end is 7 feet over the cockpit. Lets see your uncle flake that main.

We do have light air inventory we manhandle to hoist. The mizzen staysail is good to about 10 apparent. Its easy to hoist & set since the conditions for its use are pretty benign with wind 90 to 160 degrees. The AS kite is mostly a 200% jib of about 110 #. We put a halyard on it inside the guest cabin and haul it through the port or stbd hatch just ahead of the mast using the Milwaukee power winch driver. It has an ATN sock. This year we are adding a 131.5 sq meter code zero - also with a sock.

Roller furling may not give you the greatest speed or efficiency but we get there in one piece, at pretty good speed and not beat up.

[Andrew Troup]

I probably would not be here but for in-mast furling.

It was a Hood Stoway, so it was relatively undeveloped, immature technology, and to cap it, not well suited to the boat. The drive was woefully underspecified (a line-driver winch, which I would have thought marginal on a 40 footer, was fitted to a 52 footer)

Worst of all, there was NO backup: no bevel gearbox at the bottom end, which you could plug a winch handle directly into. Just an endless loop of undersized braid, running around an undersized line-driver winch, on a cobbled-up mounting so the whole winch slid and wobbled along a track, so the line could be tensioned.

What's to like?

This is what's to like: when we got caught shorthanded in a desperate situation with a mini tropical revolving storm which built quicker than we could respond, we lived to tell the tale.

We got our first inkling of problems around dawn when we came on watch, and a bad feeling about the signs, but had problems getting rid of the heads'ls. We were cheesed off with the previous watch for not alerting us earlier, or asking for a second opinion , but I know what it can be like in the graveyard shift: things sneak up while you're zonked and muddling along, and hindsight is notorious for turning up late.

Anyway, we started behind the eight ball because they had not properly briefed us about problems they'd been having with the heads'ls, as a result of which, and the dramatic arrival of the storm, we ended up still with FULL main with the wind already double the maximum the boat (with that amount of sail) could realistically be asked to stand up to. Worse news: it was still building quickly.

Mercifully, the FULL main was actually an anaemic, underpowered and depowered main, typical Hood build for a Stoway rig: flat as a cupboard door, hollow leech and foot, (negative roach). The mast on that boat was also to far forrard, to my eye.

It all suddenly looked pretty damn good, though, even in that strange lighting I've never seen before or since.

The hull was light (alu) and low wetted surface (minimal fin, big spade, narrow waterline beam, U shaped bow sections), so we had that going for us as well.

We also had searoom in unlimited supply, so we had been running off since the moment we realised we had a serious problem.

So ... we used a trick I learned from a racing skipper when I was still a kid: early for the (downwind) start, in a lightish offshore race, he had me grind the boom into the middle of the boat. We were trimmed for lying head to wind, but heading DDW with minimal drive.

And this, luckily, worked for us in the building phase of the TRS, now with gusts up to 60 knots True, reduced by the fact that the boat was simultaneously planing (not surfing) up to 14 knots

Essentially the extra drive (over and above "bare poles") was limited to the 'skin friction' drag of the sail, because the projected area was as near as dammit zero.

But this made the boat controllable, until and unless the leech moved two feet sideways in the wrong direction, the wind crossed to the other side of the sail, and the heeling force was suddenly equal and opposite to the previous, steady state value.

Which, I'm pretty sure (and was not keen to be proved right), would have broached us into a cartwheel. It certainly would have had us swimming in the cockpit.

The helmsman was "in the zone". I have never known someone rise to a challenge like that boy did. He was a fit athlete, and he wasn't moving a muscle, but he was rather exhausted afterwards.

There were only three of us on deck and nobody could be spared to go down and bang heads and get more. The rotten sods were pretending to be asleep.

So us remaining two started carefully grinding that sail into the mast, and it was REALLY hard, partly because of the friction (the sail was on the wrong 'gybe', and despite its flatness and being ALMOST amidships, that made it bear hard on the side of the mast slot). So we had to substitute a two-man winch handle and both heave on it up to, and beyond, our somewhat puny Buster Bloodvessel limits, just to get the thing to move an inch.

... and partly because of a countervailing consideration: if the continuous line, or the winch, broke, we were cooked.

I say that because (for reasons I won't go into just now) the boat was temporarily in a precarious situation, offering unfettered opportunity for water from the cockpit to get below. If we spun out at that speed and tripped over our deep keel, the boat would sink almost immediately.

But the main inched into the mast, and the needle of the anemometer bent further around the peg (I thing the maximum it read was 70) and by the time we had most of it away, the wind hit the maximum which I would guess was 80 across the deck, and started to drop back.

- - - -

So I was a convert to the concept, if not the execution, of in-mast furling. It is, however, hopeless for light weather sails, as has been thoroughly traversed here.

My dream expedition boat would (and hopefully, will) have a full hoist heavy main which will double as a storm trysail, negative roach, furling inside the mast with STRONG furling gear.

The light mainsail, good for (and normally put away at) twenty knots but marginal for thirty, will be a modernised sliding gunter fat head, with a vertical leech, full length battens, and will furl around a horizontal mandrel.

This is not easy to arrange but I've pretty much cracked it, at the concept level and most of the detail, I think.

But it would not be a commercially attractive product, I also think.

[Red Sky]

Originally Posted by Nicholson58

The roller main furler will roll easily if the lead from the clew is good. Too high or too low and the material will bunch or bag. Mark your topping lift for the right spot. Also, make sure the foil is tight enough that it doesn't ride excessively tightly against the mast slot opening. Also be extremely careful that nothing else such as a flag halyard can get sucked in while it is furling. This happened to us once and it is instant disaster. One other time the storm tri-sail halyard was likewise pulled in. We have noticed that winding in the main may work better with port or starboard rotation depending on what side the boom is on. This can effect the friction during winding.



Glad to have your uncle come help hoist our 135% #1 - 280 pounds of 5-layer fusion membrane on an 80 foot mast. Flaked on a grassy field and tightly rolled the bag is 4 feet diameter by 4-1/2 feet long. It is not possible to flake it on deck and stuffed down below would fill the entire salon. This whole discussion depends heartily on the size of the vessel and sails as well as the crew that will operate it and how you will use it. Furling sails were made to make life easy on big boats and for short-handed and older sailors. They are not race equipment on most boats. We never drag wet sails below and we don't put ourselves at risk on a pitching deck. Our boom is 5 feet above the coach roof and the aft end is 7 feet over the cockpit. Lets see your uncle flake that main.



We do have light air inventory we manhandle to hoist. The mizzen staysail is good to about 10 apparent. Its easy to hoist & set since the conditions for its use are pretty benign with wind 90 to 160 degrees. The AS kite is mostly a 200% jib of about 110 #. We put a halyard on it inside the guest cabin and haul it through the port or stbd hatch just ahead of the mast using the Milwaukee power winch driver. It has an ATN sock. This year we are adding a 131.5 sq meter code zero - also with a sock.



Roller furling may not give you the greatest speed or efficiency but we get there in one piece, at pretty good speed and not beat up.

If he was still alive he may have a change of opinion pulling up a headsail that heavy.

I was really trying to make the point that the old timers didn't like/trust furling headsails when they came out either.

I have a furling main and I'm happy to live with the trade offs.

[barnaclejim]

Very entertaining post. Having grown up around sailboats and in the day when people were still building heavy displacement cruising boats without engines and excoriating all new technology, I appreciate the clean and simple systems. 50 foot traditional boat crew of 15 working their asses off. Hank on and off stow below.. Yikes Our current Love beast has a 35 year old Hood in mast furling main. I have to believe that the technology has gotten better but ours has served us mostly well with 2 atlantic crossings and many thousands of miles. maintenence and patience required. Quite fortunately our mast cavity allows for a heavy dacron sail. Some do not and you need a very light sail fabric to even fit in the cavity. The only other issue is fluting.. Never a problem on anchor but in a marina and OMG below decks without the goofy flute stopper Our mast humms like a banshee or an electric transformer about to explode. We can drop the sail onto the boom if we need to but never have. With a schooner rig we carry 5 sails all on furlers and when stowed below they take up a huge amount of room. We are sold on the technology, but of course as with everything else on a boat you need to know how to maintain and repair and have options if all else fails

[MickBeth50]

Laziness. Only good excuse I see with in mast furling.

I am guilty of some laziness myself so I will go with lazy jacks and stack pack type system. Almost as easy to furl and store mainsail as in mast.

I do not want to take a chance with a jam if there is another easy way and I do not want weight up high in the mast.

However I have a manual windless and hand held lead line; )

STUPIDNESS - the only way to be stupid is not to have in-mast furling...sailing short handed - as i do - on a medium sized boat - the best way to enjoy "lazy" is have in-mast furling. stupid is as stupid does - to quote a gump

maybe you have a lot of people (friends or otherwise) to help you on a small boat - but on a medium sized boat with only my wife - i appreciate the convenience of in-mast furling

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Noreastern

Laziness. Only good excuse I see with in mast furling.

I am guilty of some laziness myself so I will go with lazy jacks and stack pack type system. Almost as easy to furl and store mainsail as in mast.

I do not want to take a chance with a jam if there is another easy way and I do not want weight up high in the mast.

However I have a manual windless and hand held lead line; )

Laziness is not actually such a great rationale for in-mast furling, in my opinion. It's not that easy to use, requiring two people. Infinite reefing, reefing or unreefing without heading up, safety in heavy weather, are the main reasons. No faffing around on deck in heavy weather. Much easier to reduce sail in a blow (witness Andrews post above).

The lazy part is storage of the sail: perfect and effortless storage of the sail inside the mast - no flaking, no sail cover. Yes, that's very cool.