Headsail furling: Best practise

[DirkJ]

Hi folks,

simple question (hopefully): What is the best practise to furl a furling headsail in an out (or reef it)? Go into the wind? Close hauled? Hold the sheet tight with tension or let it loose?
Dirk

[hamiam]

Personally I like to hold the sheet tight at all times as it gives a tighter wrap. Depends on your system but I can furl and unfurl my Profurl system at any angle.

[Jeff_H]

The only other suggestion is to release the halyard and backstay tension a little before furling the sail so as to reduce creep in the luff of the sail and to retension the sail when it is deployed.

Jeff

[EscapeArtist]

You should unfurl the headsail after you''ve raised the main and are sailing.

Put the sheet on a winch and start pulling out the sail. Once you get it out a bit, the wind will do the rest.

The important thing to remember is to keep the furling line under a bit of tension as the sail unfurls. As the sail unfurls, the furling line is wrapping onto the furler drum. If you just let the sail fly out with the furling line slack, you''ll get riding turns on the drum and you won''t be able to roll it back up.