How does a roller furling mainsail work?
Unlike a traditional mainsail that is hoisted and doused vertically with a halyard, an in-mast furling mainsail wraps around a tube inside a hollow mast. It is unfurled by an outhaul line and furled back in with a line labelled as the “inhaul.”
How do you use a roller furling system?
In this roller furling system, the jib is hoisted in a groove, but when not in use is furled around the headstay, rather than lowered. To furl the sail you simply pull on a line that leads from a drum at the base of the jib aft to a winch near the cockpit, which rotates the whole headstay, rolling up the jib.
How long should roller furling line be?
You may lead the furling line halfway down the side deck and directly into the cockpit or almost down to the transom, around a turning block and into the cockpit. As a rule of thumb, we therefore use the boat length, plus 20% as a tail.
What is a Jiffy reefing system?
Jiffy Reefing allows an entire “slab” to be quickly removed from the mainsail to reduce sail area and power in “heavy-air” conditions. The mainsheet and halyard eased, Jiffy Reefing lines pull the aft reef grommet tight to the boom while a separate reef line attached to the forward reef grommet is then tightened.
How to reef a mainsail?
Since more and more boats these days are leading the halyards aft, single line reefing has become a very popular method for reefing your mainsail. Single line reefingessentially means that the outboard and inboard reef cringles use one line to tuck (or haul down) both ends of the sail.
How is a roller furling mainsail made?
There are three methods for making roller furling mainsail and UK Sailmakers offers them all. The most common furling main is the in-mast main with no battens. Without battens the sail has a concave leech, which makes the sail smaller, less powerful and less efficient. Many production cruising boats come standard this way.
What is the purpose of roller reefing?
The roller reefing was really designed for use with bolt rope sails IIRC, and the bolt rope was pulled out of the track as the sail was rolled up. BTW, the rope that the two slugs are on is called a jackline, and is meant to allow you to reef the sail without removing the slugs from the mast track.
Can you roll the boom to reef the sail?
I have not yet tried it, but you are supposed to be able to roll the boom and roll up the main sail on it as a way to reef. Others that have the same boat tell me that the system doesn’t work well. That the sail bunches up too much near the mast end of the boom due to all of the cars and wire and sail at the luff side of the sail.