Roller Furling Problem: HELP!

[OhioSailor]

I recently purchased a boat and I am having trouble with a Schaefer Roller Furling unit. It seems that I get a halyard wrap when the sail is nearly fully out or when I try to furl it all the ways in. I have tried adjusting the halyard tension without success. I have been in touch with Schaefer and have tried their ideas without success. This is frustrating as I have been unable to sail my boat yet this year.

[knothead]

Originally Posted by OhioSailor

I recently purchased a boat and I am having trouble with a Schaefer Roller Furling unit. It seems that I get a halyard wrap when the sail is nearly fully out or when I try to furl it all the ways in. I have tried adjusting the halyard tension without success. I have been in touch with Schaefer and have tried their ideas without success. This is frustrating as I have been unable to sail my boat yet this year.

You need to install what is referred to as a halyard restrainer or add a pennant to the tack or head of the sail. Or both.


Feel free to send me a private message, I will give you my phone # or email address and be happy to discuss your problem.

[sailingfool]

KH has it right. The halyard needs to be pulling aft on the swivel. making an angle to the forestay. If the swivel is high enough, producing the needed angle, you can often get away without a halyard restrainer. In general all you sails should be full hoist, add a pennant where needed. My Furlex setup has a restrainer and it never wraps.

[OhioSailor]

I already have the halyard restraining bracket in place. The pennant makes sense. I suppose I can make the pennant with some line and bowline knots? Or do I need hardware? Is there any advantage to a top pennant versus a bottom pennant? Thanks for the input so far. I find this forum is a great help for a sailor with few local resources.

[CalebD]

What the other guys have said only to add:
Your profile does not say what boat you have, nor does your post so I have no way of knowing if your boat is rigged for a spinnaker or not. If it is and you accidentally used the spinnaker halyard to raise the jib you will have these kind of problems. Do not ask me how I know this as I will deny it.
One more thing: the upper fitting on the furler needs to be lubed every season. If it gets a little sticky it could wrap more easily.
You can use binos to see what is going on at the top of the mast (I am assuming mast head rigged vs partial rigged jib).
Good luck.

[US27inKS]

I use a pennant with my 110 jib. My pennant is made of lifeline cable, and I use it on the bottom of the sail. I figured I should get the sail up in the air where is will do more good than down on the deck.

[sailingfool]

Anything stronf could make apennant, but SSwire is common. If its more than a foot long, you should have a sailmaker make it up and the lfuff tape should estend up to the top of the pennnant. My sailmaker was very insistent that the pennant be taped also.

Put the pemmant at the top of the sail, I am not sure of much of a perfoarmance reason why, but having a pennant at the bottom would look odd.

[sailingdog]

Some boats do have the pennant at the bottom, to give the sail some clearance and allow a singlehander to see more easily past a large genoa.

[OhioSailor]

I have a Seaward 23. It is a fractional rig. It is not rigged for a spinnaker because I have only one halyard for the roller furling and one for the main.

[CalebD]

Then you have a bigger problem and the extrusions are not rotating cleanly about the forestay and catching somewhere. Perhaps the PO ran the roller furling mechanism into a dock somewhere and put a dent in it. If you can find any dings in the extrusioins that go up the fore stay you can straighten them out a bit but I would still give some lubrication to the fore stay parts, even WD 40 if it is catching badly.
Suggest you disassemble the stuff to figure out what is not rotating properly.
Good luck.