[casey1999]

It looks like my 31 year old Sea Furl 325 may be about done. Parts are not available (foil sections), fasteners are all frozen, and the carbon steel bearings are shot.

So I could purchase a new Hood Sea Furl 5/325 at a good price or purchase a Shafer 2100. Any opinions or experiences with either?

One thing I don't understand is the Sea Furl 5 seems to use both stainless and Torlon bearings. Why? Where the Shafer uses only Torlon. I would think the all Torlon would be better- no corrosion.
Regards

 

[capttb]

My Schaefer 2100 is only about 12 years old and pretty much flawless except when I bought the boat about 5 years ago the lower bearing drum was frozen. On the early models they neglected to put some flushing holes at the top of the drum, so over time the bearings just "kunked" up from the salt etc. The only solution was replacement of the drum with the new model with flushing holes.
Anyway, the Torlon bearings had a kind of waxy buildup on them from not getting rinsed that froze them. Nothing seemed to work to soak it off, the new drum is flawless BTW so the Schaeffer has been good. Torlon is good if you flush them once in a while.