Forestay unwrapping

[Daydream believer]

It is one thing to tell others not to use a winch to furl a sail, but with my aged hands it is essential. I had a Facnor furler for 20 years & have just replaced with a new Profurl. I only have a self tacking jib & even with the new kit this year find it hard to use regardless of halyard tension.
with my Facnor I removed the plastic halyard disc, as that caused the forestay to kink when dropping the mast. As suggested above, I have a mast aligner. Halyard wrap only happens if the halyard is slackened too much

 

[Refueler]

AS DB says - halyard wrap occurs if Halyard is slackened ..... AND :

If sail is short on luff - the halyard angle to stay is too shallow - this is what caused it on my new boat. Adding a 30cm tape pendant to sail head cured it. Even with a diverter - this situation will still occur.

If top halyard swivel is caked or full of salt crud ... its stay exit rough / worn

If forestay is not tensioned enough

And as already said - wrap can occur when furling or unfurling ..... al you need is a change of wind / circumstances and even though you've unfurled ok .. furling may wrap.

 

[B27]

If the forestay is unlaid, that pretty much must be caused by the foil jamming on it.
Do halyard wraps increase the friction between the top of the foil and the stay?

What's supposed to be happening at the top is the halyard and forestay stay still while the foil rotates between them.
If there's any lateral force on the top of the foil, the little plastic bush in the top of the foil, running on a bundle of wire, is not a great bearing.

 

[B27]

This is an example of correct use of a Selden diverter. (not my boat)

View attachment 157789

Also, see how the top of the foil is actually bearing on the roll swage, not the wire.

 

[Refueler]

I would suggest that wrap does in effect cause foil / stay to rotate together with stay birdcaging.... if forced too far.

The halyard in wrapping not only is round the stay - but also putting a lot of pressure on the halyard swivel - plus friction between halyard and swivel body. Acting like a tourniquet.
If this was not true - furling / unfurling could still happen - albeit with halyard round stay.

 

[B27]

I would suggest that wrap does in effect cause foil / stay to rotate together with stay birdcaging.... if forced too far.

The halyard in wrapping not only is round the stay - but also putting a lot of pressure on the halyard swivel - plus friction between halyard and swivel body. Acting like a tourniquet.
If this was not true - furling / unfurling could still happen - albeit with halyard round stay.

A Halyard wrap will tighten the halyard and probably put side load on the bush between the foil and the stay.

Working loads like leach tension may do the same.
The foil rotates a bit every time you tack or sheet in or out.

I begin to feel the need to take a close look at mine before I take the mast down.

 

[srm]

Are halyard wraps more likely with dainty foil section reefing gear and genoas?

I got a wrap on the delivery trip with my previous boat, the gear looked old and worn. Replaced it the following winter with a Sailspar continuous line system. This has a robust tubular furling spar. Four years layer I changed my boat and wanted to go up a size on the two forestays so again fitted Sailspar continuous line system while replacing the standing rigging. All halyards had diverters or offset sheaves to give the recommended, or slightly greater lead angles.

So three of the same reefing systems over 18 years, quite a few thousand miles use, at few times with only two or three metres of clew extended due to weather conditions. So far no halyard wraps despite the frequent use of a winch on the furling line when reefing in strong winds to avoid flogging the sail.

Or perhaps its the high cut clew on my cutters that avoids the problem by giving a more uniform load on the gear.

 

[dac31]

Maybe a dyneema forestay is less likely to kink and birdcage. I will he trying this over the winter.

 

[B27]

Maybe a dyneema forestay is less likely to kink and birdcage. I will he trying this over the winter.

I don't think dyneema would be any good.
Firstly it changes length. Creep more than 'elastic' stretch AIUI.
Second, I don't think the bushes in the luff spar are right to be bearing on a rope.
You could overcome that by running the dyneema in a tube of some sort, plastic or even metal?

Other, more expensive ropes might be better.

But personally, I'll be looking around the yard at boat which don't have problems and those which do.
I'm sure my furler needs a service, I don't think I've got a real problem, never had a wrap.

But I think you can wreck your forestay without having a wrap, or have wraps without damaging the forestay.

 

[srm]

1. A 6mm forestay can be fatally weaked by muscle power alone, no need to involve winches.

Is all your standing rigging 6mm?

On my boats I have gone up one size for the forestay(s). With a properly set up bermudan rig all the standing rigging should be in tension with little or no side forces. That is all except the stay(s) that carry sails. Hank on or roller sails: these stays are subject to serious side loading and vibration. It seems sensible to compensate with a stronger stay. I have always done my own rigging since my first boat in the 70's, but when I mentioned in passing to a pro rigger that I was going up a size (trying to sell the old roller gear) he agreed that it was sensible.

 

[doug748]

Just a little update to this old thread. I replaced my forestay, and the top swivel with a used one that I "rebuilt" (changed ball bearings, not races, which I couldn't easily source). I went with compacted strand for the replacement forestay. Got through circa 700 nm, most of which in healthy (yet not savage) meltemi winds, no problem at all. Then suddenly one day, in barely a F2, I couldn't unfurl the genoa. Noticed that halyard wrapping around the forestay, tensioned it a bit, unfurled the sail with no problem.

A few sails later (some of which in F5-F6), I weigh anchor with my reasonably-fit-yet-definitely-not-muscular cousin in a F2. I tell him to pull on the sheet to unfurl the genoa. My attention drifts elsewhere, until I notice him really struggling to unfurl the sail. I tell him to stop putting all his weight on the sheet, there's clearly some sort of issue. I slacken the halyard just a bit, and the sail unfurls fine. A couple of sails later, I simply can't get the sail to unfurl at all. I try all possible halyard tensions, from reasonably firm to completely slack, the halyard would just wrap around the forestay no matter what.

I went up the mast to investigate the issue, only to find that my brand new forestay has suffered from this unwrapping/birdcaging as well. So yet again, I need a new forestay! More crucially, I've lost all faith in my furling system and I'm probably looking at getting a new Facnor LX system professionally installed by the local distributor, at a fair yet still eye-watering cost. I tried sorting this out in a DIY manner in line with the spirit of this forum and boat ownership, but I'm pretty much acknowledging defeat at this stage.

I should've fitted a halyard diverter - I didn't. The sail furled/unfurled with no problems after replacing the forestay/upper swivel, with the aid of the Facnor halyard deflector. So I was perhaps lulled into a false sense of safety, thinking that I didn't need a diverter after all. I went through 700nm in breezy conditions with everything working perfectly, until it didn't.




And here we get to the crux of my post. Initially I thought this was a very good idea. But I didn't anticipate that halyard wrap might occur when *unfurling* the genoa. It never occured to me that halyard wrap might occur when I told my cousin to pull on the sheet to unfurl the sail. In my opinion, the lay of the halyard should be such that 'birdcaging'/unravelling is more likely when furling the sail, rather than unfurling. You have to pick one -- you'll either be more likely to unlay the forestay when unfurling or furling the sail. In my (definitely non-expert) view, it's better to be in a position where unlaying the forestay is likely to occur when furling rather than unfurling. My thinking is that you can always control the furling of the sail via the furling line. If you get a halyard wrap, you just stop furling, unfurl the whole sail and drop. But with unfurling, you're at the mercy of the wind -- if it's blowing ,your sail will try to unfurl, and if a halyard wrap does occur, the force of the wind might just be enough to unravel your forestay. In all likelihood, this did not happen in my case, it was pure muscle force that did it in benign conditions. But it could easily have been a strong wind instead.

This is a tale involving no winches. As far as I can tell, my cousin (through no fault of his own, it was his third trip on a boat) managed to unravel the forestay by just pulling on the sheets vigorously. It never occurred to me that *unfurling* the sail might damage the forestay, or indeed that a forestay could be defeated by muscle force alone.

To summarise:
1. A 6mm forestay can be fatally weaked by muscle power alone, no need to involve winches.

2. Halyard wrap can occur when unfurling a genoa, not just when furling.

3. In an ideal world, the forestay lay should be such that unravelling is a risk when furling a sail, i.e. halyard wraps when furling rather than unfurling threaten the stay. You can control the force applied to the furling line better than you can control the force on the sheet when unfurling a sail in breezy conditions.

I realize that I'm probably overthinking this, and that a well-installed system won't have to contend with these issues. I certainly hope that a new roller furler installed by an experienced rigger will put my mind at ease. In any case, this is my experience, and these are my thoughts, and hopefully at least one pearson will find them useful.

Thanks for getting back with the update. I might be looking at other systems than the one that had let me down, Harken is well liked - apart from the cost that is

.

 

[sailoppopotamus]

Is all your standing rigging 6mm?

On my boats I have gone up one size for the forestay(s). With a properly set up bermudan rig all the standing rigging should be in tension with little or no side forces. That is all except the stay(s) that carry sails. Hank on or roller sails: these stays are subject to serious side loading and vibration. It seems sensible to compensate with a stronger stay. I have always done my own rigging since my first boat in the 70's, but when I mentioned in passing to a pro rigger that I was going up a size (trying to sell the old roller gear) he agreed that it was sensible.

Forestay and backstay are 6mm, uppers and lowers 5mm. The diameters are reasonable given the boat size, so I don't think there's much point in upsizing. What I don't know is if the boat was originally rigged with 304 - it certainly seems plausible. Given that I will be replacing with 316 wire, which is said to be weaker than 304, I've chosen to go with compacted strand/dyform for the new forestay to be on the safe side. It's more expensive than 1x19 but hey, I only have one forestay!

Thanks for getting back with the update. I might be looking at other systems than the one that had let me down, Harken is well liked - apart from the cost that is

.

You do have a point. On the other hand this roller furler is between 20-35 years of age, so I can't really say it has failed early. Facnor then retired the sd range in favour of the ls/lx/rx range. This was initially marred with reliability issues, but Facnor have long addressed these as far as I know. The current offering seems like a pretty solid unit. It's also significantly cheaper than Harken. Most importantly for me, the local Facnor distributor is also a well regarded rigger, and definitely has vast experience installing these furlers. Consequently I'm pretty sure he'll do a good job, and there can't be any accusations of improper installation in the unfortunate scenario where I have to make a warranty claim.