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RichH RichH is offline
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First recorded activity by BoatBanter: Dec 2007
Posts: 197
Default headsail furlers -the good, the bad and the ugly...sound off!


This somewhat depends on halyard geometry. *You see some setups where the
halyard leads at an angle from the foil. *This is good for minimizing
halyard wraps but pulls the end of the foil against the stay. ........

*******Not talking about lead angles of the top swivel to halyard
sheeve.... but the deflection of the torlon bealls under extreme
compressive load from extreme halyard tension; hence, the tendency to
begin to jam or add a lot of friction. My recent Harken starts to jam
when at extreme halyard loads. But then again 'kroozers' have no
idea that it takes halyard strain to 'shape' a sail so its probably a
non-issue for those who simply 'just raise' a sail.

I release the tension on my new sail

********Damn good idea as 'creep' (permanent elastic deformation) is
what eventually 'kills' the shape of a sail.


I had luff foam
put in which I'm told has gone out of style but does seem to do a good job
of increasing the amount that can be rolled up. * I will probably switch to
the working jib if knowingly facing a long beat in 25 knot plus conditions
but I wouldn't make the switch just for traveling. *With the third reef I
had put in the main and a touch of power, I should be able to handle
anything with the 135% that is likely to come up unexpectedly.

******* The newer modern cutting programs (with "S" curve luff hollow
profiles) have mostly obsoleted the need for foam luffs ... although
on a BIG sail you still sometimes need a wee bit of foam luff to
'help' the partly furled shape - still 30% reduction is about as good
as it gets; and, that assumes that one knows how to set the correct
backstay/headstay tension to match the actual 'luff hollow' that is
cut into the headsail when its fully wind-loaded



BTW I had a dock neighbor very interested in my fuel system yesterday. *He
takes fishing parties out so is one of the few people still using much fuel.
He said that so few people are buying fuel that lots of people are getting
poor fuel because the long hoses are sitting out in the sun for much longer
periods. *The fuel polisher in Portland evidently is no longer in business
this year.

Yup, the higher hose temps are good breeding grounds for those fungals
that thrive in #2. Those 'filters' on the delivery hoses do nothing
to stop the 'spores' and 'buds' of the fungals/bacteria. The filters
there are mostly for 'rocks, sticks and feathers'. If possible, I
only buy fuel from a marina as the very last resort; Id rather 'jug
it' from a truck stop as the chances of fresh uncontaminated fuel is
much much less. :-)