Multiple foresail furlers

[Jonathan316]

After drooling over a photo collection of Open 40 and Open 60 single-handed boats I''ve noticed that many use multiple roller furlers for their foresails. Some mounted with the furlers almost next to each other, more with them on 2-3 independant stays in a line spaced from the bow towards the mast. Like a main furler on the forestay and another furler mounted 1-2 feet aft of the first.

And now my embarassing dumb question:

How to you tack with the foremost furlers''s sails deployed? How does a genoa or jib get around those extra furler units & stays without hanging up on them? Do they have to furl the sails to tack?

Hope that makes sense and isn''t too dumb a question for the forum.

[Jeff_H]

Open class boat use huge assymetrical reaching sails that are jibed around the outside of headstay (outer stay) that they are attached to. They do not use genoas up wind and so fly thier upwind sails on the forestay (the inner most of the two stays). Not a dumb question at all.

Jeff

[Jonathan316]

Once again you further my education Jeff, thank you.

What happens to the sheets? If they jibe around the outside, are the sheets routed outside of the headstay as well?

And compared to ''forestay'', how do you define a headstay? Is it simply the forward-most stay? Guess I''m confused over whether if a boat has a a single forward stay should be referred to as the headstay or forestay. Is it a question of load bearing and/or mast support that defines the difference?

Sorry to thank you with so many follow-ups...

[Jeff_H]

In days of old......never mind...er.... lets just put it this way, when I was growing up, the headstay was the stay that goes to the head of the mast. On a masthead sloop with a single headsail, the headstay is the same stay as the forestay. On a boat with multiple stays forward of the mainmast (or foremast on a schooner), the stay that is inboard of the headstay is the forestay and the stay that is inboard of that is the Jibstay. On a boat that only has two stays forward of the forward most mast, the forestay can be the jibstay. The popular term ''staysail'' is an abreviated form of the term,forestaysail. The other sail is a headstay sail. Both are headsails, as are spinnakers which are not flown from stays at all. Baby stays are stays that are used for structural support and are of a size and location where a headsail cannot be effectively flown from it. There is no such thing as a cutter stay (except perhaps on vessels with left handed monkey wrenches.)

What happens to the sheets? If they jibe around the outside, are the sheets routed outside of the headstay as well? Yes....
Jeff

[Billpjr]

I had twin roller furling genoas on a 42''x24k lb cutter. It also had an inner stay with quick release for storm sails. This stay was normally released and secured so it didn''t chafe the sail or cause tacking problems.

The twin furlers were setup fore and aft and spaced approx 18" apart. If spaced closer the sails could rub and chafe. Both sails were the same size but different weights (heavy and light). I used the heavy aft one for regular cruising and deployed the light fwd one while running both sails wing and wing on poles. Each furler had a dedicated winch with wire to roller them up. I wouldn''t go offshore with furling gear that wasn''t setup that way. The boat has sailed the atlantic coast down to panama, through the canal, Galapagos, Hawaii, Alaska and back to Florida with this rig...no problems.