jamming furlers

[HoffaLives]

I've never had one jam, but i've heard of it often enough. what is generally the cause (if one can generalise) and what's the best solution other than just dropping the headsail halyard?

[chef2sail]

On easy way to keep the furler from wrapping is to make sure the halyard at the mast headhas the correct ange not to acute. If the swivel is too low, the halyard will wrap around the sheeve on the forestay,,,a common proble.

We solved this with a bale or block for the halyard at the mast head so their is some aft tension on the halyard. It has never failed us.

[rhaley]

I have never had a jam myself, but the few that I have seen could be traced back to the furling line not being tensioned while the sail was unfurled, resulting in a jam at the drum. To me, this is why furlers like the on Giu has on his boat look so reliable.

[BarryL]

Hello,

My Newport 28 came with a Furlex 100S furler. It worked great the first year. The second year it would occasionally jam. I didn't find out why until the end of the year when the boat was hauled and the mast dropped. There was a halyard retainer strap (like a small eye bolt) that kept the halyard away from the furler. The strap corroded and broke. I bought a new one from Selden for about $5 (they were great to deal with) and I never had another problem with jams.

Barry

[Maine Sail]

Many jams can be directly attributed to not applying enough back pressure to the furling line as you let out the sail.

If you were to just let the sail pull the line out, as the wind filled the sail, and put no tension on the line it can becomes a nasty, balled up lump, of loosely wrapped furling line quite quickly that can then jamb the drum.

Other jambs are caused by "halyard wrap" at the top of the extrusion. This can be avoided by installing it at the proper angle or adding halyard wrap preventer.

Over the years I've owned furlers from six different manufacturers and they all worked well, ok except for one, and user error, on my part, was usually the only reason I ever had a jam..

Also during spring set up make sure that when the sail is furled you don't have a ton of excess line on the drum. It's a good idea to un-wrap extra line so you don't over fill the drum and risk a jam..

[Jeff_H]

Other problems are too much or too little halyard tension, and not enough backstay tension. Some of the worst jambs occur after sailing H.I.H.O. in strong winds which can pull the retractor line through the coiled line on the drum resulting in what effectively is the equivilent of an override on a winch. In-mast furlers are particularly prone to jambing due to the geometry of the opening to the sail and the smaller diameter drums.

[HoffaLives]

Originally Posted by Jeff_H

Other problems are too much or too little halyard tension, and not enough backstay tension. Some of the worst jambs occur after sailing H.I.H.O. in strong winds which can pull the retractor line through the coiled line on the drum resulting in what effectively is the equivilent of an override on a winch.

so i guess this happens when the coiled line on the drum is wrapped too lose, and the high tension on the retractor line caused by high pressure on the sail makes it "dig" into the spooled coil?

[Loewe]

See SpinTec Furlers.

Regards,
Red

[Robby Barlow]

Originally Posted by HoffaLives

I've never had one jam, but i've heard of it often enough. what is generally the cause (if one can generalise) and what's the best solution other than just dropping the headsail halyard?

Never had a headsail jam when unfurled, so dropping it probably won't be feasible to start with, we had to manually unfurl by swinging the sail round the forestay to then drop it and proceed with fixing the problem. More of a problem are in mast furlers for the main, 'cause when they jam it's basically push & shove and pray it comes loose, not a lot of fun in a blow and heavy seas I can tell ya.

[Idiens]

An additional cause of genoa furler jam can be a trapped spinnaker halyard, wound into the genoa as it is furled. So keep the spi halyard well tensioned and stowed well away from the furler foil.