Difficult headsail roller furling

[bobmorning]

Second question about our 84 '31 Hunter.

In any kind of moderate to hard breeze, the head sail is darn near impossible to bring in. I have reviewed the line placement for pinching and chafing. I did replace the block nearest the furler as the pulley was very worn and the line was slipping between the pulley and the block housing.

Still the furling is a tough go. I did notice that the lower furling assembly is rotating somewhat and is pinching the line as it enters the furling assembly.

Any ideas on how to keep the assembly from rotating and pinching the line, anything else I should be looking for that would make it easier?

Thanks for any info,
Bob M.

[JSailer]

One of the thing to check is your headsail halyard tension. If it is too slack (ot too tight) it could be part of your problem.
Also, in any kind of breeze, it is a lot easier to go downwind as too depower the headsailin the mainsail's windshadow.
If i don't do it on my boat, not only is it hard to roll the headsail in, but it also will roll super tight because of the tension on the sail and i end up running out of line in the drum before the sail is rolled all the way in.

[sailingfool]

Make sure the last block that the furler line goes thru is positioned so the lead of the furling line into the furler drum is at the manufacturer's specified angle.

[jbondy]

Originally Posted by JSailer

One of the thing to check is your headsail halyard tension. If it is too slack (ot too tight) it could be part of your problem.
Also, in any kind of breeze, it is a lot easier to go downwind as too depower the headsailin the mainsail's windshadow.
If i don't do it on my boat, not only is it hard to roll the headsail in, but it also will roll super tight because of the tension on the sail and i end up running out of line in the drum before the sail is rolled all the way in.

If the halyard tension is too light, it can wrap around the forestay when furling, which will definitley make it harder to do. Also, it can fray the halyard, or worse, if you have a wire hlayard, it can cut the forestay, which happened to the PO of my boat.

Also, the efficacy of the downwind tactic depends a little on the size of your main. Our undersized main doesn't blanket enough for this to be useful in heavy air. I'm much better off heading into the wind and furling quickly while the jib flogs a bit.

[DrB]

Ways to make rolling in the headsail easier:

- Down wind to have it blanketed by main
- Ease jib halyard tension. Some tension to keep furler channel somewhat straight, but not too tight to pull on the bearings.
- Check furler line for overwraps on drum and line alignment going into drum. Should be a smooth transition. Is the line going over the drum frame first? Rotate drum so the the line feeds directly onto drum.
- Directly into the wind may work, but for a big headsail, the flogging actually can really put a lot of pressure on the furler and make it more difficult than downwind.

Sometimes in a heavy blow, you need to just get someone to pull on the furling line right at the drum to get it started and help it.
- Are blocks that the line go through back to the cockpit even and uniform height or at least no blocks higher/lower than the one for and aft of it.
- Are the blocks about the height of the furling drum? They should be.

[imiloa]

This might seem kinda obvious but here goes anyway... We like to furl our jib snugly so we usually keep a bit of tension on the leward sheet while furling. It doesn't take much tension on that sheet to make furling impossible or nearly so. So, make sure your jib sheets are running as freely as possible - especially the windward one.

[sailingfool]

Originally Posted by imiloa

This might seem kinda obvious but here goes anyway... We like to furl our jib snugly so we usually keep a bit of tension on the leward sheet while furling. It doesn't take much tension on that sheet to make furling impossible or nearly so. So, make sure your jib sheets are running as freely as possible - especially the windward one.

This is an important tactic...a sail that is not tightly furled is subject to pulling partially out in the next big blow, creating pressures that break the furling gear and lead to the loss of the sail.

[DrB]

Originally Posted by sailingfool

This is an important tactic...a sail that is not tightly furled is subject to pulling partially out in the next big blow, creating pressures that break the furling gear and lead to the loss of the sail.

is to cleat off the furling line so that the drum can not rotate. We also always take a few wraps of our sheets around the furled sail to secure it.

If it is going to really blow, we remove the sail.

DrB