Roller furling continues

[Hartley18]

Since there's an active discussion on roller furling, I thought I might throw in a couple of questions with our set-up that have been puzzzling me for a bit..

We have a Hood Profurl - the usual thing, swivel at the top, drum at the bottom and TWIN foils.

1. I understand that twin foils allows you to hoist another sail up the inside of the existing one if you need to go up or down a gear, but.. if the headsail you have up is on the swivel, I assume you can't do that - you would never be able to lower the first one. Does that mean you need to either:
(a) use the furler like it was supposed to be used (ignoring the twin foils).
(b) use the foils (ignoring the furler) but
(c) not both?

2. To hoist the headsail on the furler, we roll the furling line right in, hoist and pull on the line to furl, but sometimes, by the end of the race, we haul on the furling line, but the drum is empty before we fully furl the sail, leaving the tail to flog all the way back to the pen. What gives? Anything I'm missing??

Thanks,
Cameron

[Faster]

Most twin groove "furlers" provide for being able to remove the drum for racing, at which time you'd use it just like a racing foil. The swivel is usually left at the bottom of the foil extrusion and the sail bends around it a bit.

As you say, the second groove is a bit useless if the swivel is aloft. I suppose someone may have tried hoisting two headsails on a single halyard for some furlable wing-on-wing arrangement but I doubt it's terribly practical.

Being unable to fully furl the sail is usually due to insufficient line on the drum. It probably rolls up much tighter after the race than when you furled it at the dock and therefore requires more turns to get it all in. Try for a looser roll, or put more line on the drum.

[Hartley18]

Thanks, Ron

I'll have a better look at it this weekend and see if I can't put more line on the drum..

[sailingdog]

Hartley—

I generally recommend putting at least four or five extra wraps on a furling drum so that the sheets wrap the furled sails at least once or twice when you furl the sail completely. This helps prevent the sail from unfurling and causing massive problems.

[SimonV]

One reason I was told for 6 extra turns or more is that if you should rip the sail then the hope is that you have enough to finish the furling.

[Hartley18]

Thanks, guys.

I think this might be where I'm going wrong.. 6 extra turns it is!