Harken Furler problem...

[Zephyr's Aura]

Hey folks,

I have a CAL-34 with a Harken Furler and the halyard swivel has frozen up. Is this a common problem? Not sure how long it's been on the boat. I purchased this boat last year and I'm doing tons of work to it, so I haven't had a chance to sail her much. The furler worked last fall but this weekend I found it stuck. Is it possible to replace the bearings or should I just go ahead and order a new swivel? Anyone know a good place to order replacement parts for it?

Thanks,

Tim

[bstreep]

Tim,

This is common. The swivels at the top rarely get a good spray of clean water.

I'm assuming that the swivel in question is still at the top of the mast? You will need to get to the top of the mast. Go with a can of sailkote. There's a decent chance you can free it up completely.

[svHyLyte]

Generally on a Harken Furler, the problem is dirt or salt crystals built up and binding the bearings on the top swivel.

On a Cal 34 even a 150 is small enough to handle alone. Go out to the boat on a calm morning, unreave the sheets, and simply unwind the sail from the foil by rolling the clew into itself as you wind the sail around the foil. You can then lower the sail youself quit easily while keeping everything controlled adding a stopper of small stuff to the sail every 3-4 feet. Clean the swivel by blowing some warm soapy water through it (you can use an empty sports-drink bottle with a pop-out cap for that) followed with a good long fresh water rinse. Once the swivel dries out a bit, give it a good dose of SailKote and you should be good to go.

If you've stopped the sail, you should be able to rehoist it as is and rewrap it around the foil. If you didn't stop the sail, twist the foil until you've wound enough furling line on the drum and then rehoist the sail in the conventional fashion.

FWIW...

[dana-tenacity]

Sounds silly, but double check there isn't some slack in the furler line that has exited under the drum, the knot on the end will jam, it happened to me, wasted hours before checking the obvious.

[bstreep]

Originally Posted by dana-tenacity

Sounds silly, but double check there isn't some slack in the furler line that has exited under the drum, the knot on the end will jam, it happened to me, wasted hours before checking the obvious.

LOL - yes, sometimes we miss the obvious, looking for he difficult.

[Zephyr's Aura]

Thanks for the input. I had already checked the drum. It's free. The halyard swivel is the problem. The halyard tries to wrap around the foil when I pull on the reefing line. Not sure if this is normal but I have a steal cable with rope around the lower end for the halyard. It seems to be very stiff and looks kinked from the ground but it's a long way up. Hard to tell for sure. The wind was way to high yesterday to remove the sail, so I couldn't try lowering the swivel. Looks like I may need to go climbing but I won't know until I can get the sail off. Maybe this weekend. Going to be raining here for the next two or three days.

Tim

[donradcliffe]

If you have damaged the plastic balls in the bearings, you can buy new ones at great expense from a Harken dealer.

[svHyLyte]

Tim--

If you do not have one, there should be a halyard guide at the masthead, below halyard shieve, that guides the halyard away from the swivel at an angle of approximately 10 degrees from the center-line of the forestay. Further, ideally you want the swivel as close to the top of the foil as possible to maintain a fixed 10 degree lead angle. Without the offset, such that the halyard essentially parallels the forestay, even a modest amount of dirt or debris in the swivel that hinders its action will result in a halyard wrap at the masthead which you seem to be describing. If the luff of the sail is too short to get the swivel to the top of the foil, you can add a pendant to the tack, raising the sail somewhat, and/or at the head to raise just the swivel.

FWIW...

s/v HyLyte