furlers

i have found links on home made jib furlers, this will be my next project. i have not been able to find much on home made mainsail furlers. are they to hard to make or just not popular. would it be better to make lazy jacks instead, i know they are easy to do but i like the idea of being able to roll the sail up out of the weather inside the boom.

 

White,

In boom furlers are a pretty complicated piece of gear, from the tapered madrell to the cut of the main everything has to be engineered closely to work perfectly, or you wind up with a sail bunching up at either end of the boom that can't be rolled anymore. This was the cause of a lot of early systems failing. You could try and reverse engineer them, but it would take a lot of work.

A jib furler on the other hand is a simple extrusion on bearings, that doesn't require the tight tolerances of a boom furler. Therefore are much more susceptible to home builds. Personally I hate all furlers, though booms furlers are better than in mast at least.

 

Main boom furlers are complex. Boom furler, mast ramp, pre feeder. Not worth the trouble.

Jib furlers are relativly simple and work great.

 

fair enough. give the main furling a miss. i wil make up a jib furler because i sail on my own and it will make life a lot easier.

 

You can probably purchase a used furler for peanuts.

So many bareboat charter boats go up on the rocks and are destroyed around here that the salvage ship breaker guys have fields full of boat metal like furler drums, winches, stantions, keels, steering wheels.

Ask around.

 

I actually bought my last furler for about $300 including the sail, bu getting it from a hurricane boat that was scrapped. So ya, looking for used equipment is much easier to get stuff cheap than homemaking it.

 

Main sail furling is great for skippered charter boats where you are short handed and have to get the sail in and out quickly and where generally you avoid sailing in anything more than a light breeze. But for all weather sailing it is a horrible system, guaranteed to jam half in - half out the moment you most need to reef and moreover the sail shape is compromised by the need to furl. If you want to change the sail you have to unfurl the whole lot first...no fun in a strong wind.
Personally I like the lazyjack and bag systems, when well set up you can drop the sail single handed in to the bag and just zip the top closed; the sail is always covered when not in use. No system is perfect, you see the bag on the sail, the front is difficult to close and the zips have a short life.
Nick

 

Do say where

 

i have to put some saddles on the boom for the lazy jack ropes. do i just use standard aluminium rivets from the hardware store or do i need stainless rivets. it is an aluminium boom.

 

I think you'd be fine with either one. You're going to get some issues with stainless/alu contact either way if you're putting a stainless saddle on an alu. boom. The stainless rivets are stronger, but I'm not sure how meaningful that is. I doubt either would readily fail if installed properly. FWIW, mine uses stainless screws and they have not ever been an issue.

You could probably even glue them on with an appropriate adhesive. Lazy jacks won't put much stress on it.

 

thanks jb, i will screw mine on to.

 

Fabric webs around the bottom of the boom, held in place by mechanically fastened ss web eyes in the bottom of the boom , work well and can take the full breaking strength of the lazy jack.

Another system is a full length alloy luff tape track bonded to each side of the boom. This system allows the mainsail cover to be the lazy jack...Stack Pack style.

 

thanks micheal, what do you mean. webbing straps with eyelets to run the lazyjack cord through.

 

webbing Strap under boom...lazy jack to webbing strap. You can also just drill a hole thru the boom...both sides and pass a line. Many modern carbon boom do this.

If you leed your jacks to a spreader , instead of the mast wall, you can open up the slot and make hoist and furls easier

 

Making a furler is extremely easy.

You need two laser cut disks, a pipe, bearing to fit in the pipe and a bolt going through the bearings.
All stainless of course.

Weld the disk with the small hole on the one end and the other where you want it for the rope to wind around.
Put bearings in pipe, put bolt through bearings. I used about 6 or 8 bearings there.

If you drill a hole through the pipe with a bolt through the cable and hole that's one end.

Use locknuts ;-)

Made a couple this way and they work great. Ok for those who think a pipe is a bit roughm you can just use a 'hollow tube'. Perhaps it does look better :-D