"Charlie Morgan" wrote in message
If I wanted a furling mainsail, I think I'd opt for the in-boom,
rather than the in-mast approach.

Firstly - regarding the low friction track & slide option - this works well,
but you still have to go up on deck to reef or tie down the sail - Perhaps
at night or in heavy seas. A big plus of furling mains is that they can be
operated from the cockpit.

I would agree that having any potential problems at a level where you can
fix them is a plus for in-boom furling. And having a full roach furling main
is a plus. But many of the earlier and perhaps even present in-boom designs
have had design problems.

One problem is the goosneck - This causes the tack of the mainsail to be
located 6 or 8 inches aft of the mast track. Early designs by Hood and
perhaps others used a somewhat flimsy plastic track to direct the mainsail
luff rope into the mast track. This caused problems.

Other designs use standoffs from the mast that located a new articulating
mast track (and halyard sheave) aft of the mast in line with the gooseneck -
This may work but "looks" like a work around and there is still the
possibility of the separate track coming loose or whatever and that is still
aloft. These designs sometimes have the furling drum on the aft end of the
boom - the furling line which has to be quite thin, goes through many
contortions and I have seen them fail.

Another aproach on some multihulls, was to have no gooseneck, but allow the
mast to rotate - I thing I saw this on Farrier trimarans. These units had no
furling drum, but used a crank operated through the mast to wind up the
main.

The in-mast furlers that we see on Catalinas and many other new designs do
look neat and look like a well engineered solution - I would like one on my
boat, even with the negative that mainsail area will be reduced with a
roachless main and there is always the possibility of a jam aloft.

But, one would think that better engineered in-boom furlers should be
possible, especially if the mast & boom are designed as a system. A well
engineered in-boom furler would then be my choice, but it would not likely
be suitable as a retrofit.