reefing

[Kiskadee]

'Faster' is bang on. I've seen a couple of Simplicity furlers with bent forestay turnbuckles from sailing in high winds with the headsail partly furled. As the wind load tries to unfurl the sail, the furling line places high side loads on the drum. With Simplicity the drum is clamped at the top of the turnbuckle, which isn't made to take side loads. I've seen one break in half on a 25' boat. Most reefing furlers have heavy turnbuckles or link plates to transfer the side load to the hull. You can take a Profurl's furling line to a winch while the sail is under load and it'll reef in fine.

[leonem]

I've never been comfortable with roller-furling headsails for all of the reasons that've been brought up here, but I have found (on a 33-footer) that rolling the genoa down to 100% or so still lets me point reasonably well in 20-25kts.

One system that I've seen (but not used) is having a double headstay (or an additional headstay just above the roller reefing system). The idea is to keep a storm jib on board, then when the wind gets too high, raise the storm jib on the leeward side of the genoa, then tack. The storm jib takes some of the strain and you can roll up the genoa.