Custom Made Roller Furler....is it viable

[Brent Swain]

are you bored/

Why do you come on here peddling your half baked ideas from 1973?

The world has moved on and reliable well made, well proven furling gears are readily available. People who know what they are doing appreciate well engineered gear and are willing to pay for it, so don't need your out of date "advice"

The 'Advice" they get from other sources usually involves putting the financial self interest of the advisor over the interests of the cruiser. They simply don't want people to know of far better and cheaper alternatives to what they are selling, at exorbitant prices.
A friend built one of my furlers back in the 80 's, and used it ,problem and maintenance free until a few years ago,when he replaced it with far more expensive and complex commercially made one. When I asked him what the difference in performance was, he said "Zero difference."
I don think any of them are as reliable as mine ,which has done 6 Pacific crossings ,35 years of mostly full time use ,and have done several circumnavigations , the NW passage and Cape Horn with zero maintenance, and zero problems.No ,making them increasingly complex doesn't represent an improvement, nor good engineering.
"Simplicity is the true genius." Albert Einstein.

There are several commercially made versions of my furler ,which have eliminated the needleslly complex and problem prone parts , like the totally pointless halyard swivel,etc . "Simplicite" is one, as is Famet's ,and one other who's name I fofget

 

[Brent Swain]

So now the luff tension on your sail is translated into compression on your split pipe (twice as much compression, too, since the tension is split between the luff and the halyard). So either you need some heavy, sturdy pipe to avoid buckling even though it has a slot cut into it, or the front of the sail can't be tensioned properly for going upwind.

I had a furling system without a top bearing on our previous boat. The head of the sail was lashed to the foil rather than using a halyard (so halving the compression it needed to carry) and it all worked quite acceptably on the staysail - but since we had a jib and a mizzen as well and the boat was only 24', the staysail was the size of a dinghy jib with correspondingly low loads.

Pete

I used to use a couple of half inch pipes sch 40 ,welded together, one for the forestay, and one for the luff rope .When we found 1 1/4 inch sch 40 already slotted, we switched to that, with plastic bushings every 2 feet to centre the forestay and keep the luff rope away from it. Hard to find now. Welding the last 2 inches of the slot on top closed, drastically increases it's stiffness, when it comes to twisting loads. One 40 footer used it on a trip from BC to New Zealand and back to BC, with zero problems, and zero maintenance.
Since I wrote an article on it in Pacific Yachting in the 80s ,and included it in my book, they are becoming increasingly common on boats here in BC.

 

[Brent Swain]

A good furler is worth the pennies. If you can get your hands on a Harken second hand then that is fantastic.

I've seen home built ones, and yes they can work, but it depends if making and engineering and all that is your thing and you have the time. With a reputable furler if it goes wrong you have plenty of riggers for advice and a strong source of parts.

Only one thing. Maintain them! Don't just leave it up year after year. Get it down and apart every few (or in best world every) winter and give it a good once over, clean and service.

I doubt many Harkens have done 6 Pacific crossings ,and several circumnavigations with zero maintenance and zero problems. With a sch 40 pipe on a forestay, and no more moving parts, whats to maintain or clean?
If they are anything like Harken sheet blocks, which are extremely fragile compared tot he ones you make in 20 minutes out of scrap aluminium, I wouldn't expect it to last long. For A boat in the 36 ft range I have not sen any furler extrusion anywhere near a strong as sch 40aluminium pipe, nor a drum as strong as a drum you weld of 3/16th aluminium plate.

 

[lw395]

I doubt many Harkens have done 6 Pacific crossings ,and several circumnavigations with zero maintenance and zero problems. With a sch 40 pipe on a forestay, and no more moving parts, whats to maintain or clean?

The forestay that it's fretting against?

 

[PeteCooper]

The forestay that it's fretting against?

Surely the forestay will be hand woven from navel fluff so will be cheaper, longer lasting and much stronger than any kind of wire.
A lot of people who used wire for their forestay have been lost at sea.

 

[prv]

A friend built one of my furlers back in the 80 's, and used it ,problem and maintenance free until a few years ago,when he replaced it with far more expensive and complex commercially made one.

Why did he replace his perfect maintenance-free cheap system with a complex and expensive one guaranteed to fly into a million pieces as soon as it gets out of sight of land?

Pete

 

[Tranona]

The 'Advice" they get from other sources usually involves putting the financial self interest of the advisor over the interests of the cruiser. They simply don't want people to know of far better and cheaper alternatives to what they are selling, at exorbitant prices.

What absolute nonsense. This is a consumer world where not only is there good information available to help people make decisions but more importantly the people making the decisions are mostly intelligent knowledgeable people and resent being told by others such as you that they don't know what they are doing.

There are simple furlers such as you describe - indeed I had one on a boat I built in 1976. Would I have one again? Absolutely no. once you have used superior products it is difficult to go back to such primitive devices - which incidentally are almost universally chosen by today's ocean voyagers.

 

[Brent Swain]

The forestay that it's fretting against?

If that were problem, it wouldn't have kept working for over 30 years of mostily full time cruising with zero maintenance , and 4 circumnavigations with no problems. A common theme I have been attacked with online, is the theory that "that which has worked well for over 40 years, with no problems , won't work!"

 

[Brent Swain]

Why did he replace his perfect maintenance-free cheap system with a complex and expensive one guaranteed to fly into a million pieces as soon as it gets out of sight of land?

Pete

Because he bought the advertising, which he now admits ,was a big mistake.