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Post by mpcsail on Jun 11, 2019 0:02:23 GMT
Went opposite of what I was planning. Ordered it with furler today. However, we then had to order a bow sprit to allow for clearance.
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Post by zaphod on Aug 16, 2019 2:16:56 GMT
Last weekend, at the end of our 2 week vacation, we finally got the right wind conditions to test out the asymetric and furler. It took a few minutes to get it set up, but once it was ready to go it deployed beautifully, and we were off! We were doing a solid 7.5kts with bursts over 8kts. We let the auto pilot do the steering and we had lunch laid out on the cockpit table! It was all very civilized! It must have been quite a spectacle as we theaded our way through a big fleet of sport fishing boats at speed! When it was time to douse the spinnaker it furled up beautifully without leaving the cockpit, and we left it up in case we wanted it again later. We have yet to try a gybe so that will be the next test, but so far I am loving it! More importantly, the wife, who was apprehensive about flying such a big sail, loved it too!
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Post by moonshadow on Aug 17, 2019 15:44:13 GMT
After a downwind leg can you just roll up the spinnaker and drop it on deck for the upwind leg and hoist it back up furled in praparation for turning downwind?
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Post by zaphod on Aug 19, 2019 19:48:11 GMT
Yes, you can do it that way, or if you are short handed you can just leave it up for the upwind leg, although it will mess with your a ability to point I would think. I guess it depends how serious you are!
With the Harken furler you can have multiple sails, Asyms, and code zero, all loaded on their own torque ropes, that will snap into the same furling unit.
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Post by zaphod on Oct 13, 2019 9:42:36 GMT
Well, we took Azura out for a fun race and got a chance to play with the furler. We were short handed and racing in cruiser mode, and it was blowing under 10kts, so we just put the furler on the sprit and left it up the whole time.
The sail unfurled nicely on the first leg, and the gybes went pretty well. We decided to do outside gybes, because there is not a lot of separation between the torsion rope and the forestay. Because the wind was fairly light I found going up to the bow, grabbing the clew and running back with it was the quickest way to gybe.
When we furled at the bottom mark we already had the jib out, so I could not see the spinnaker as it furled. Afterwards I saw that the lazy sheet had wrapped quite a few times around the bottom of the sail. Because the sheet had been resting on the drum I think it might have fouled the tack swivel and caused the bottom of the sail to furl early. This ended up making a fine mess when we tried to unfurl at the top mark, because the top unfurled before the bottom. It took a good portion of the downwind leg to get that mess sorted out!
Lesson learned...make sure the lazy sheet is not laying on the drum when you furl. Unfortunately with the sheet is not laying on the drum it will likely fall under the bow, so sheet management will be important. Perhaps some kind of hook or batten off the end of the sprit to catch the sheet.
Next time I think I will try inside gybes, with the sheet run between the torque rope and forestay. That is the configuration I will go with for cruising, and if conventional jybes don't work, we will just furl to gybe.
I still have lots of experimenting to do, but I suspect that if I were to do any fully crewed buoy racing I might be inclined to take the chute off the furler and handle it old school.
We had fun, even though we were well off the pace, and couldn't keep up with most of the fleet in the light air. I even got beat by my old boat! We did have one little victory...another member just got a Beneteau 36.7 with carbon sails, and we managed to stay ahead of him for the whole race, even with our dirty bottom, fixed prop and cruising sails!
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Post by zaba on Nov 25, 2019 23:23:47 GMT
Has anyone experience using top down furler for asym spi on SO49i
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Post by waterdog on Jan 10, 2020 1:56:00 GMT
I Sail and race a 2010 42DS. I’m a single hander On the Chesapeake and installed an A3 from quantum. It’s a top down furling Spinnaker. To make it work I had to move the shiv up the mast so it would not conflict with the jyb head and halyard. I then purchased an Elvstrom code zero which is a bottom up furling sail. Love it. The furling line must run through a non-fiction fair-lead, think of circles attached to the stanchions. Furling in these sails requires upper body strength, like a rowing machine in the gym. For off wind, these sails are great. Michael. Waterdog.
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Post by zaphod on Jun 22, 2020 19:18:47 GMT
Another update in case anyone is interested. My wife and I have been participating in a few races double handed, and doing quite a bit of gybing. We were having all kinds of troubles with outside gybes. The biggest problem seemed to be the new sheet getting hooked under the tack of the sail, or worse, falling under the pole. Combine that with dragging the sheet across the small diameter torque rope and it made for very difficult gybes, a d none of them terribly successful! This weekend we decided to do inside gybes, with the sail passing between the furler and the furled jib. My reasoning was that it would be much smoother to pull the sail across the furled headsail, the sheet would be contained and less inclined to get fouled. That method worked far better, and we banged off several pretty decent gybes with a lot less drama! In terms of what to do with the sail on the upwind legs, I had the spinnaker bag clipped to the lifelines straddling the foredeck, and dropped the furled sail down and coiled it in the bag, leaving the sprit deployed with the bottom of the furler still attached. We are getting the hang of furling the sail, but it is quite a bit of work. Definitely a learning curve! If I was racing fully crewed I might still be tempted to take the sail off the furler and hoist and douse it old school, but for our purposes, cruising and racing short handed it works pretty well.
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Post by apo on Aug 21, 2020 10:25:34 GMT
Steve, We had a top down furler on our SO379 which we raced two handed. A brilliant sail and very easy to use once you got the hang of it. We are getting one for our new SO410 which arrives this month. Chris
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Post by saltymetals on Dec 14, 2020 13:11:15 GMT
OK, so much for the kit (I have a North 100 sq m gennaker on a Karver top-down furler and Selden sprit). I fly mine ,often solo, up to about 15 kn AWS.
What tips do you guys have to avoid the reverse-wrap when unfurling?
Andrew
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Post by zaphod on Dec 14, 2020 17:38:10 GMT
OK, so much for the kit (I have a North 100 sq m gennaker on a Karver top-down furler and Selden sprit). I fly mine ,often solo, up to about 15 kn AWS. What tips do you guys have to avoid the reverse-wrap when unfurling? Andrew My understanding is that the back wrap can be caused by a couple of things. If the torsion rope twists too much when furling then when it relaxes it can back-wrap. Different manufacturers have different solutions. Some use plastic balls on the torsion rope. Harken developed a rope design that doesn't twist nearly as much as others. The other thing that causes back wrap is rapid uncontrolled unfurling. You need to control the speed th sail unfurls until the bottom of the sail is free of the furler and then you can let it run.
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Post by reiner on Dec 16, 2020 20:07:20 GMT
Hi Andrew, It was very interesting to hear, that you are using a top down furler on a SO 43 DS. I have the same boat, and built a nice stainless steel bow sprit. But actually I am affair that there will be a problem withe the space between the spinnaker halyard and the forestay with the genoa. This space is on the top rigged 43DS very limited. Do you have no problem with this or did you improve crane with the block for the spinnaker halyard. I would appreciate your your advice, because I am sailing mainly only with my wife and therefore a top down furler, using my asymmetric spinnaker would help me a lot. Reiner
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Post by zaphod on Dec 16, 2020 21:47:47 GMT
Hi Andrew, It was very interesting to hear, that you are using a top down furler on a SO 43 DS. I have the same boat, and built a nice stainless steel bow sprit. But actually I am affair that there will be a problem withe the space between the spinnaker halyard and the forestay with the genoa. This space is on the top rigged 43DS very limited. Do you have no problem with this or did you improve crane with the block for the spinnaker halyard. I would appreciate your your advice, because I am sailing mainly only with my wife and therefore a top down furler, using my asymmetric spinnaker would help me a lot. Reiner On my 39i I moved the spinnaker halyard exit up to the masthead, and that gave me adequate clearance from top to bottom for furling and gybing. That way there is room to do inside gybes, (sheet running between the furler and the forestay). That works much better than outside gybes and there is no worries about the lazy sheet going under the boat etc. I would be concerned that the top swivel and the spinnaker head would foul on the forestay if the halyard was left at the fractional position. The added benefit is being a masthead halyard is that you can fly a bigger spinnaker.
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Post by reiner on Dec 17, 2020 21:01:19 GMT
Hello, this configuration would be also perfect for me. Unfortunately the top rigg of the 43DS isn’t like this. Look at the photo.
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Post by reiner on Dec 17, 2020 21:05:06 GMT
Sorry here is the photo
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Post by zaphod on Dec 18, 2020 6:25:54 GMT
Sorry here is the photo Wow! There isn't a lot of room for a spin halyard on that mast! You definitely want some kind of crane on your masthead.
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Post by saltymetals on Dec 21, 2020 13:59:18 GMT
Zaphod is right. Not much room at the top of the mast of the 43ds for the spi halyard.
Reiner, I had the black disc removed and a long SS strip added at the top swivel of the genoa that then connects with the genoa halyard. However i suspect that the top swivel of my top-down furler is still being slightly fouled by the genoa setup since i get a reverse wrap from time to time when unfurling. I only once tried to gybe the gennaker (outside) and it was a total disaster in spite of the tack being fixed to a Selden bowsprit to get some space away from the furled genoa. I had to take the gennaker down and give it what i call the "washing line" treatment. Stretched out horizontally between two trees to carefully untangle it. Now i just furl it, gybe, then unfurl. I realise that is not much good for racing but it is fine while cruising short-handed.
As Zaphod says, it needs an extension plate for the gennaker at the mast-head but the tension on the torsion rope is so extreme that I think it might break an extension plate on the top of the mast. It might be better to get a rigger to move the attachment point of the forestay down a bit as well as the exit point for the genoa halyard if there would be enough strength in the mast with the forestay being a little lower. Meanwhile i live with what i have. My setup does work most of the time but i was hoping for some ideas so it works ALL of the time. One trick i discovered is to pull the UN-furling line for at least 20 turns on the drum or until you feel a little resistance, all while the gennaker is fully open (at about 140-150 AWA). Then to relax the sheets and wind pressure on the gennaker a bit (partially behind the main) and then pull on the furling line so the head of the gennaker catches the torsion rope and the furl starts. Once furled this seems to result in less stored twist in the torsion rope so the next time i unfurl it comes out beautifully. In 10-15 kn of wind it will fill very rapidly so you have to warn any crew not to be standing over the continuous furling line lying on the cockpit floor. I never tried Zaphod's idea of slowing and controlling the speed of the unfurl. Sounds another idea worth trying but risky by hand, it would need a turn on a winch.
The other very critical point recommended to me is that the torsion rope has to be under a lot of tension when unfurling or furling but can be relaxed a bit once flying fully open or once fully furled. I mark the gennaker halyard at the two points just where it exits the Spinlock so i can successfully repeat the correct tensions. The first time i used a really high tension i had the GM of Allspars UK onboard and he convinced me it was necessary and would not break anything. The tension needs to be so high that it is hard work on a manual winch so i pass the line across to my electric halyard winch on port.
Andrew
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Post by zaphod on Dec 21, 2020 16:53:51 GMT
The idea of controlling the unfurl comes from my sailmaker, and from racers I know that use furlers. It is not difficult or dangerous to do in normal conditions, and it doesn't require a winch.
Regarding torsion rope tension I am told that some manufacturers recommend a 2:1 tack line to get their torsion rope tight enough. Harken's torsion rope does not need nearly as much tension, and they actually caution against over tensioning. I pull it on hand tight, and then just give it a quick snug with the winch.
The OP should definitely consult a rigger regarding solutions for the spin halyard. A properly designed and built masthead crane should be able to handle the load without bending.
With such low clearance at the masthead it will be important that the head of the spinnaker is not too stiff. If the sail wasn't specifically built for furling the corners will likely be quite stiff and overbuilt. My sailmaker took off some of the layers on the head to soften it up.
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Post by reiner on Dec 22, 2020 11:37:24 GMT
Hi Andrew, hi Zaphod, thank you for your replys. My idea is also to built a new crane for the spinnaker halyard to create more space. The remarke with the tension on the non twist rope is important. I would like to buy a furler from Bartels, they have very good test results and hose over the rope. This increases the diameter and a quicker roll up of the sail and gives later the non twist rope the possibility to unbend against the furling direction without turning the sail. I will ask them what tension is necessary. Zaphod your are right, it is surely also a question how stiff is the head of the sail. This point I have to check, thank you for this important note. Unfortunately the boat is actually in Croatia and I in Germany. I don't know when it will be possible to go to the boat next year, but thats a general problem, so stay safe. Reiner
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