[sailingdog]

Bill—

I highly recommend putting a sailtie around your roller furled headsail if you're going to be away from the boat for any significant period of time...or get a headsail sock. Either of these will prevent the sail from unfurling and flogging itself to pieces. The sock has the added advantage of protecting the sail from UV damage.

 

[sailingdog]

I do the same thing... but you have to remember to put a few extra turns on the furling drum so you can do this. Also, I highly recommend leaving a few wraps on the drum, since some of the drums can split if the loads get too high on it and there aren't at least a couple warps of the furling line on it.

The reason I put the sail ties on the sail is if the furling line breaks or comes loose... it prevents the sail from unfurling. It's a bit overkill for normal weather, but if I'm going to be leaving the boat for more than a few days or if heavy weather is expected, I'll do it. The sail tie will also go around the genoa sheets that are wrapped around the sail, so they can't come undone.

But how exactly does the sail unfurl itself in high winds? When I roll up my sail I make sure to roll it up so that it has about 3-4 wraps around it with the sheets acting like a sail tie I guess. Also before I coil up the sheets in the cockpit I make sure they are sheeted off fairly tight to a cleat so there is no way they are going to ease up. Also I make sure the furling line is well secured to its own cleat the everything is rolled up tight and cleated off so it can't unwind.

I am just curious if this is what everyone else does/what you are suppossed to do and how the sail could come loose from that?

Thanks

 

[sailingdog]

Paranoia is never a bad thing when dealing with New Englad weather...

Yeah I make sure there is extra line on the furling drum. Ok so the sail ties are in case the lines break....make sense and I like the extra peace of mind.

 

[sailingdog]

The headsail sheets should make at least two wraps around the headsail when it is properly furled. This will greatly reduce the chances of it flogging, but the sheets also have to be cleated off properly-and using a self-tailing winch is not cleating them off properly, since the wind could possibly blow the line out of the self-tailer.

Hi all, thanks for the additional information. To answer one question, I don't think that I had secured my headsail sheets back to the cabin. So the furling line was secured, but not the sheets. This must have allowed the sail to unwind a bit and flog itself to death. SD, good suggestion about the sail tie. I did actually have a bungee around the furled sail, but it was not up to the task. I will continue to wrap the sail tightly and secure the lines to the cockpit. That is more than I was doing before

I get my sail back this week sometime, I can't wait. There is quite a difference between the 110% that I am using now and the 150% that is being repaired. On the plus side, I have sailed four times in 1 1/2 weeks.

Thanks again for the great info.

Bill