Rolling up the Genny

[RayMetz100]

I took out a Cal 2-25 with a roller furled 130? genoa today. The wind near Seattle was dead in the morning and we ended up motoring to Kingston. On the sail tacking back to Shilshole, the wind picked up to whitecaps and about 3 foot waves for a breif period so we decided to roll it back up.

We tried pointing the boat into the wind to roll it up, but had a hell of a time because the boat kept going in irons and then doing pirouettes as we struggled to pull on the furling line. It was quite an adventure with the boat spinning around this way and that, getting the rails near wet each time she leaned. We finally got it in and made it back to the marina with just the main. We didn't have to reef it or anything.

After it was safely tied up and I handed the keys back to the staff at my club, they commented about the whether. It had calmed down considerably by then. I breifly told them we had an interesting time rolling up the headsail in it, and how I was trying to point it into the wind. My old instructor asked if I wanted some advice, and said that it's better to run down wind so it's blanketed by the main before trying to furl it. That makes sense to me. What do you guys think?

I found a plot of the winds. I haven't done the GMT conversion, but maybe it was blowing harder at 1300PST:

[Faster]

Heading down and hiding the genny behind the main in order to furl it does work well. Sometimes if the main is too slack, it furls messily and with more bulk than you want. Then you can feather the boat up and put a little more pressure in the sail, or put some tension on the sheet by hand while you roll it up to get a clean roll.

Also, rolling up while head to wind in a breeze can make the roll so tight that you run out of furling line before the whole sail is in.

[pigslo]

My 135 likes to be furled with just a little bit of fill and I tend to head in a direction that will just barely fill it. The right angle and it rolls up easily and with no white showing.

[T34C]

I have found falling off to a reach and keeping just enough tension on the sheet to keep the sail from flogging works well. The wind keeping the sail partly filled provides enough tension that the sail will roll properly and not too loose or too tight, as Faster indicated.

[RayMetz100]

I'll definitely give that a try the next time I roll it up.

I did the GMT conversion on that graph and it did in fact start at 2-4 knt winds the first 4 hours of our trip then shot up to 24 knts for the last 2 hours. It was a great expierence for my third sail as skipper.

[T34C]

Sounds like it was a good learning experience and all turned out OK. Well done.