furlex furler

Loualfr · #1 (**permalink**) 09-19-2007

I have a 2 year old furlex furler for my headsail on my cal 22. in the past year its been quite difficult to unfurl and furl. I lubricate it once a year as was advised by the sail loft who installed it for me, but despite that, its still pretty difficult to use. does anyone have any input on this? thanks.

tdw · #2 (**permalink**) 09-19-2007

Remove the sail and see if it's grabbing on the main drum or the top swivel. With the sail off you should be able to spin both them easily by hand. Other possibility is that your leads are not running smoothly. The one just before the drum may need adjustment so that the line runs smoothly to the lead.

sailingdog · #3 (**permalink**) 09-19-2007

It is very likely that you have too much or too little halyard tension or the forestay isn't tensioned enough. Both of those can cause a Furlex to be very difficult to unfurl or furl. I'd check both the halyard and the forestay.

I have a Furlex on my boat, and really like how well it works.

tdw · #4 (**permalink**) 09-19-2007

Good point SD. From my experience with a Furlex (and ours is 15 years old) it's more likely to be the halyard than the forestay if that is the problem.
It's also possible that something is askew at the masthead fitting. We did manage to get the main halyard wrapped around the genoa halyard once and that jammed the thing up good and proper. It was also very difficult to detect the problem from deck level.