Electric Furling for Headsail

[Gludy]

Has anyone any experience of using electric or hydraulic headsail furlers?
Are they reliable?
Can you furl manually when the electric fails?
Which are the best makes?

Any advice appreciated.

[Splash Gordon]

Never used one in anger, only luxury-yachted on a Deerfoot. But a treat to use, nevertheless.
One name I know: Reckmann.
You furl them with a winch-handle... slowly... But they're bulletproof, so it almost never happens if you've got well-maintained systems.

[Gludy]

I have checked out Reckmann which do seem to be the Rolls Royce system and one that I may now fit for both the headsail and the Code Zero.

[Abaco]

Gludy,

Keep it simple and light. Just make sure your furling line leads to one of your electric primary winches. Then you will always have a manual back up that you can operate from the cockpit. The manual override for an electric unit must be operated at the unit on the bow, which is not where you want to be when it's rough and blowing and you have a very large out of control sail whipping around.

[GordMay]

Reckmann Electric EF90:
Comforting to know that in emergency situations it is easy to switch over to manual operation. In order to guarantee secure and simple operation, loads from the sail are completely absorbed and hence cannot affect the winch handle. The integrated length adjustment is likewise easy to operate and works even with tacked sail.

Reckmann Hydraulic RF90:
Through the simple insertion of a standard winch handle the hydraulic drive is uncoupled and switched to manual operation. Thanks to a special gear mechanism, which prevents transfer of the sail load to the winch handle, the reefing system can be operated easily and safely even in manual operation mode.

Goto: http://www.reckmann.com/en/rollreffanlagen.html

[Gludy]

So far I see the advantages of ease of use when it is working - with that quality equipment that should be most of the time.

The disadvantage is that when it is not working you have to go to the furler to operate it and that could be a real problem.

Thats, as I see it are the facts to balance ..... agreed?

[speciald@ocens.]

I am having my third Profurl electric furler installed next month. thre in four years - how is that for reliability? In fairness, all replacements have been under warantee. The problem has been electrolisis; the powder coat bubbles off. I fear that the failure is only a sign of electrical leakage. The new on is a new design so apparantly they knew of a problem with the old design. As far as how it works - it has worked great. We have a 24v. power circuit and it has plenty of power to furl our 135% genny in any wind. A friend has a 12v. unit on a 55 ft boat and constantly blows the breaker in any blow. There is a small winch-like handle but I've never tried it. It looks like it would be like brushing an elephants teeth with a standard toothbrush.

[Nordic cat]

Originally Posted by GordMay

Reckmann Electric EF90:
Comforting to know that in emergency situations it is easy to switch over to manual operation. In order to guarantee secure and simple operation, loads from the sail are completely absorbed and hence cannot affect the winch handle. The integrated length adjustment is likewise easy to operate and works even with tacked sail.

Reckmann Hydraulic RF90:
Through the simple insertion of a standard winch handle the hydraulic drive is uncoupled and switched to manual operation. Thanks to a special gear mechanism, which prevents transfer of the sail load to the winch handle, the reefing system can be operated easily and safely even in manual operation mode.

Goto: http://www.reckmann.com/en/rollreffanlagen.html

Gord that sounds like the HYDRAULIC version. Gludy was into electric I think.

Gludy.
With electric winches, I would save the money, weight and maintenance issues and opt for a standard setup. With all that fancy kit on board you are going to nedd a part time engineer on board to keep it running

Regards

Alan

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by Nordic cat

Gord that sounds like the HYDRAULIC version. Gludy was into electric I think...

The EF90 is the ELECTRIC version:
http://www.reckmann.com/en/rollreffa...g_20_EF90.html

[Joli]

Harken for us. Simple, easy to use, great company support. We roll up 1000 sq ft by hand or with electric winches.

If it failed I think I would get another Harken.

[Jolly Roger]

A 77 foot ketch which I skippered once had hydraulic furling. Big twin headsails, in-mast main and mizzen by Hood. It was fabulous every time it worked, however, once, well pressed under full sail, the hydraulics packed in, (well they would, wouldn’t they), which proved to be very very hard work, because hand cranking was very low geared and you couldn’t even wind a full circle on the mizzen.
I’ve thought about it a lot for my own boat, and come to the conclusion I want rope operated furling, including main and mizzen, leading to a couple of whopping great electric winches in the cockpit. Then, in the event of electric failure you can crank ‘em in. That method is also cheaper than both electric or hydraulic furling, and the winches can be used for other things as well.

[Aussiesuede]

Some pieces of kit are fine additions, but others add no 'real-world' benefit. The latter is the case with electric furlers imo. You're adding a piece to the puzzle that can fail on two additional points (both it's own failure or general electric failure) yet adds no significant advantages over using your electric winches. So you in essence add potential problems but don't get any quantifiable rewards for doing so. Ask youself where you'd rather be during a failure. At the headsail furiously cranking a low ratio gear to douse the sail, or in the cockpit unhanking from your electric winch and putting a wrap on your manual, high gear ratio, easily cranked manual winch? Then ask yourself exactly what benefit you fore see over pressing the button for your electric furler to furl, vs pressing another button for your electric winch to furl (although you'll likely simply elect to hand-pull the sheet as this isn't the 'muscle' part of sail handling)

[Jolly Roger]

There you go, couldn't have said it better myself.

[Gludy]

I think George summed this up well - the cost/benefit with cost being what you do with a failure tends to lean me towards sticking with the standard fulring gear.

[SeaKing]

I am using a standard furling gear setup but we do have a 28volt Milwaukee right angle drill that really puts the main up quickly and rolls in the Genny easily too. My wife can do both with it. We bought the boat used and it only has manual winches, so I first used the earlier 18 volt model drill now the 28 has all the power needed. The 18 volt would just get the main within a couple of feet of the top of the mast. The battery charges quickly enough and last that I haven't had to get an extra but I will one of these days.