On Sat, 16 Jul 2005 00:40:06 -0400, rhys wrote:

On Fri, 15 Jul 2005 17:29:41 GMT, (Mic) wrote:

On a sailing craft which purchase would be a priority an AutoPilot or
a furling (head sail)? And why?

Humm...just found this link:

http://com-pacowners.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=93

http://faculty.augie.edu/~swart/CP-1...%20Furler.html

"PVC Roller Reefing Furler


That's right - a Reefable roller furling system made from standard
schedule 40 PVC at a cost of under $20!! I wish I could take credit
for this design, but the credit belongs to Greg Cowan, owner of
Com-Pac 16 Fat Bouy. Specific instructions can be found on the
Com-Pac Owners Association website (http://www.com-pacowners.com/).

Improvising on some of the modifications made to this system by
others, I came up with a different design for the furler spool. I use
two 4 inch round electrical box covers with 1/2" NPT hole in the
middle. The shaft of the spool is made out of a 1/2" NPTx3" pipe
nipple. When threaded through the holes in the round plates, the
nipple extends far enough through the plate to attach a 1/2" PVC
thread-to-coupler on top and a 1/2" PVC threaded cap on the bottom.
The furling system rests on a stainless steel washer and cable stop,
which in turn rest on top of the forestay turnbuckel. "

"The system works extremely well under sail. As you can see here, as
long as you pay careful attention to the distance between jib hanks
when you build the furling tube, the foresail can be tensioned top and
bottom so that its luff doesn't scallop. The genoa can be furled in
or out, or reefed to reduce foresail area.


I also built a set of "twing" lines to ajust the lead angle of the
genoa sheet depending on wind speed and size of the reefed foresail.
As you can see here, the twing lines run through the jib cam-cleat
(forward) and the genoa cam-cleat (aft). The block used to lead the
geona sheet can then be adjusted fore or aft in order to give the
genoa the proper sail shape - similar to a genoa track, but without
having to drill holes and mount hardware on the coamings of my boat. "