Roller Furler

[Janice Collins]

Mike, Commanderpete, you have to change your sails with your furling system?

Does the original rigging remain with the Harken?

I never fully trust these "systems". Liked the simplicity of the traditional hanked on sails...However, it wasn't ME who would go forward in rough weather to change the sails......

Now, here I am, anything to make it easier for me to sail singlehanded, and remaining in the cockpit as much as I can.

Would appreciate hearing from somebody who has experience with the CDI Flexible Furler.

[Bob G]

Check a few posts back in this thread, I did post my opinion on the CDI. Good luck.

[ebb]

Great! Can't go wrong with experience. Tho I remember somebody here chalking it ALL up to opinion. Pro- Furl sounds a lot like Spin=tec. No maintenance sounds like reliability to me. OFFSHORE is my operative buzz word. Nuts and bolts hardware is where I'm at. There must be a boat show coming up now it's autumn, I'll go armed with what we've learnt here. Fair furling, Janice

[Bill]

Ebb, Better hurry, the Fall boat show ends today (Jack London Square, Oakland). BTW - it's mostly power at the Fall boat show. Spring show is all sail.)

[Mike Goodwin]

Janice,
The only reasons to change sails with a furler/reefer would be for maintainence ( torn sail ), racing ( go faster or slower [control] ) , major weather change ( extremely heavier or lighter air ).
Most of this can be anticipated with the exception of torn sail .
Your reefing sail is marked ie. all the way out is a 160% or 180% genny , how big depends on your local prevailing winds Chesapeake Bay in the summer calls for a 180% . You roll it in to the 1st mark , which for me would be a 110% as the wind picks up . Next step would be to put the 1st reef in the main ( for me anyway )then roll it in to the 2nd mark which would be about the size of the class jib or 90 to 100% , again according to the most common conditions you will encounter .
I might also add the 2nd reef to the main depending on wind , sea state and point of sail .
Finally , I would roll the jib all the way in and go on a double reefed main and bareheaded .

Sometimes for extended downwind passages ( days ) , you would go forward and hoist a 2nd sail in the other groove , drop the main and go wing & wing , with the tiller centered & tied off port & starboard with a bungee , the boat will sail herself dead downwind 24/7 .This way you can catnap or put on your makeup ,read a novel etc.

I like hanked on sails too , but I'm not 18 anymore and these are small boats with limited storage . It is also much easier to go for a short sail if all you have to do is roll out the jib .
I like to sail by myself when I can and this makes it happen more .

Mike

[Dave]

I'll add a good word for the newer CDI furler -- the "Flexible Furler." The older, original CDIs were pretty crummy.
I looked at a lot of furling systems and did a fair amount of research and talked to as many people as I could.
If I had lots of money, I probably would have gone with Schaefer...just because the smart people in this part of the world (Carol Hasse -- see her article on mainsails in this month's Cruising World, and Brion Toss -- master rigger) recommend them highly for cruisers. Racing systems are a different deal.
But, money counts and the CDIs are HALF the price. I called the designer of the CDI and described some of the concerns I'd heard. He convinced me of the integrity of the design and materials. So I bought one and have used it all summer.
It works great, cost me less than $500, and seems bullet proof.

Dave

[Bill]

Mike, is that what you would call a back handed endorsement? (Griping because the things don't give them any income.)

[ebb]

Too bad about the boat show tho... I was down in the forward stateroom glassing in the bases for the double water tanks today. Really wanted to see what a $250,999 power boat looks like out of the water. Musta wasted my time.

[glissando]

I had a modern CDI flexible furler on my Ensign (installed in 1998). It was excellent and always performed well and without problems. It's still going strong with the new owners of the boat. It worked well for partial furling (reefing) as well. I never did anything to it...no maintenance beyond water flush on occasion when I washed the boat.

These are maintenance free units and the flexible foil extrusion is guaranteed against any damage, even a travellift running over it or some such. The small one I had had its own halyard in the foil, which I didn't love--hard to tension. I don't know if the larger ones have their own internal halyards or not.

I think the CDI would be a good choice, and is very hard or impossible to beat for the money. It's half the cost of Harken/Schaefer/Profurl. For more offshore work, it probably wouldn't hurt to go with the next size up than the one recommended, just for kicks and a safety factor.

I have a Schaefer 1100 on my Triton now and love it. Excellent, rugged, high quality, easy to install. The days of inconsistent performance and breakdowns with roller headstays are pretty much in the past--problems that occur with a new, quality system are the result of user error (ie halyard wrap, obstructed drum or furling line, etc), not an inherent performance issue with the product. New systems are so much better than the first and second generations as to not even pretend that they're the same thing.

Once you get a quality furling system (they're all furler/reefers now, at least the ones you'd be looking at) you'll wonder why the hell you didn't do it sooner and wonder why so many people seem to want to advise you not to get one. This is a very worthwhile investment. Most comments that are anti-rollerfurling are based on bad experiences with the old, crappy, first and second generation things, which were lousy. I don't know anyone with a nice system that has a single complaint. You don't see these systems on 95% of cruising boats for no reason...they work. They're convenient. And they're safe. And they make life so much more enjoyable.

If money is an object, get the CDI flexible furler. Otherwise, go with Schaefer, Profurl, or Harken--choose the one that has the features you like best. They are all excellent; you'll get endorsements on any of the three from people who own them. If anything, the Harken and Schaefer are more modern than the Profurl, but that doesn't mean better or less prone to problems, necessarily.

Roller furlers and cruising boats are a match made in heaven. Yes, hanks are reliable. So are sextants and oars. But that doesn't mean there aren't better and more logical ways to accomplish the tasks any of these items were meant for. Progress happens, and often it's good.

Tim

[MarkCreeker]

I've got one of the old "crummy" CDI furlers. Since I haven't gotten the boat in the water yet, can't tell you how it works! (Ah, the joys of boat ownership). Could forsee problems, tho, as the extrusions that form the sail track are held together by gravity alone. May be some sticking at the joints when raising the headsail. The "flexible furler" is an integral one-piece track, that I guess solves that problem.

[ebb]

All Right!

Any furler that doesn't mess with the original stay is obviously the right system. Tho the furler drum is exchanged for the original turnbuckle, yes?

When I first was trying to edjucate self about a beefy roller reefing reefer furler didn't I read about these things being torn open in a high wind? Or maybe that was some boats moored during a hurricane and the huge sail got loose and compromised the rig because it wasn't secured right.

So, do these furlers keep the sail rolled up in the worst conditions? You know, without having to go forward etc. Is any one of them better at this than the others?

Something else I recall is that furlers require a special kind of line to roll on the drum properly. True? That may have been apropos the Harken furler. But it could be a problem if you couldn't retro normal line to the gear.

[Bill]

For a truly low effort system, why not add a jib boom and go for a self tacking system (similar to the main)? [See page 212 in Harken's 2002 catalog for a drawing and discussion.]

[ebb]

Rit Moot is the guy who invented it for his double headed and double furlered bowspritted Triton. Right next door here on the T. maintenance/projects pages. My inspiration!

[Dave]

ebb,
On the CDI you do not replace the lower turnbuckle (I don't know about other brands) but you do need to install a toggle on each end of the stay to give full motion to the rig, since you'll be tugging at the thing to furl and unfurl the sail. We had a whole new forestay built to accomodate the new toggles.
Keeping a furled sail in place on the furler in windy conditions is important and there are any number of solutions. We have a zippered cover that we haul over the sail with a spare jib halyard for two reasons: so they we don't need a UV cover on the trailing edge of the sail (I don't like the extra weight on the sail) and to keep the sail in place during high winds when we're away from the boat.
--Dave

[ebb]

trying to think how to rig the zipper from the cockpit. Seriously tho, got to see these rigs in the flesh to compare attributes. {the Spin-tec anomally is interesting because they seem to be advertising attributes everybody else has.

Wish to hell Garhauer made one, we know it would be just as good even better than the comp, at half the price. I'll definitely check out CDI with the Garhauer phenomenon in mind. (S-T wants $1400 to furler the Ariel but they'll throw in the lead blocks and the line.)

Trying to imagine the cover, What is it, on a ring that you pull down from rhe mast head so that it goes over the furling line at the clew which is halfway up the stay?

So it must be sunbrella, you hoist it while zippering it. You leave the furling lines in place, gathering them in a loop up to the top? Hmmmmm..... .........nope, don't compute