Furling mainsail recommendations for a 43 DS

[chuckr]

Mar 22, 2014 22:46:59 GMT alenka said:

Chuck,

I have just re-read your post.  Just confirm if you will that you are putting the uphill angle in the boom, Leech to Luff when you are furling;  And not Luff to Leech when hauling out.

Thanks.

alenka -- not sure what you mean -- but when we furl and unfurl we have the boom at a slight uphill angle and we really do not care which side the boom is on when we furl but would prefer if it is on the starboard side when we unfurl -- we try very hard to keep the sail tight when we furl -- sometimes the wind does it for us and that works the best but when we have to do it we try hard to put a lot of pressure on the outhaul line and we are taking the sail in --

oh and we clean the screw at the bottom with fresh water a lot and use a dry lubricant at times -

we have had such great success with this method that we can start unfurling by hand from the cockpit for the 1st few feet of the sail before we have to put it on the wench --- whoops winch --  (no not the admiral) - - (she does not read these so i am safe) --

hope this helps a bit -- if not let me know and i will take a pic and post it of where the boom is right now -- it has been a while since we sailed so need to pull the puppy out and make sure it works before we leave the dock anyway

[alenka]

Thanks for that.  All very clear.
I will need to set mine up again because I have just had nylon washers made and installed on the Gooseneck, which after ten years was starting to show obvious signs of wear.

Thanks

[alenka]

Chuck,

Just noted that we seem to have set our topping lift to give a slight uphill angle without realising it. Is this about the same angle you set?



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[chuckr]

i think ours is at a bit more of an angle -- i will try to take a pic of ours when we get it reset -- we had the main worked on - one of the 3 fingers at the outhaul had the threads break so we had it resewed and the canvas guy said he would do it by hand and we would not have to pull the sail --
when we went to the usa for a couple of week visit they came to repair and decided they had to pull the main and as such they dropped the boom down when they rehung it -- we rolled it out a couple of days ago and had to really work at it -- did it twice and almost got it right to such an extent that i can stand in the cockpit and pull the outhaul line without a winch and pull it out a bit -- but it still has a bit more work to get it right

but i think from the look a bit more angle may help



good looking boat by the way -- lucky man to have a french mistress that good looking - is the admiral jealous?

[sailbleu]

O man , this has been spoken about so many times on this board.
The search function can provide much info on that.
But let it be said , a furling main will cause problems after some time.
The mainsail becommes out of shape and it will get stuck in the mast.
All sorts of tricks can help but are not a long lasting sollution.
Battens dont go along with in-mast sails.

But all negative aspects of a furling main taken into account , I still would not change it though.
When they cause issues it's generally while unfurling the sail , it jams , and a short manual assistance does wonders.In my case anyway.
Furling the sail never jams , which is a good thing when sailing into a squall during the night .
But all that is just a delay of executing , replacing the main after ?? nautical miles is inevitable.

A furling main is a luxery though , when it works :-)

Regards

[electricmonk]

Tommy,

You need a new mainsail, yours is now out of shape and beginning to exhibit the overblown jamming issue. If you take it to a sail maker for a recut (to make it as flat as possible) you could get another season or two out of it. I am in the Med at the moment and I an with our friend above, next to engines and generators furling mains misbehaving are most common issues out here, and its either out of shape sails that wont deploy or stow or vertical batons no longer parallel to the mast slot so they take up too much room as they overlap. The latest trick is boat on which the vertical batons fell out under sail - that was "interesting" docking a boat in crosswind with a full main - happy days.

Seldon have a nice download describing the "approved" way to manage in-mast sails, basically they suggest having all the spars hang loose when furling - I am sure many out there will disagree!

I had in mast for over a decade and the worst scenario (in normal use) is when there is no wind when furling the sail so it furls loose and wont fit into the mast so you need to apply tension - so is it leach or foot? or both - either way it can be difficult to do.