Furlers vs hanks

[winch2]

Furler here too, just too old to be bothered with hanks, yet deep down I hate it. The whole shabang is clumpy, ugly and in a strange way un-seaman like. Nothing lovelier than a curled hanked on jib doing its stuff... clean looking right to the deck and well, just right....
When I think how long it took ole dad to ready the boat all those years ago. Pulling all the sails out of the cabin and lashing them on.....main as well. I suspect after all was done we had to have a cuppa....Sailing nowdays is so much easier.

 

[RunAgroundHard]

It must be a female thing. The video is pretty irritating for a simple question on why she prefers to sail solo without a roller furler.

 

[Boathook]

Furler.

Used to have hanked on sails when a lot younger and more crew, and they were good fun and gave something else to do ! Now I'm older and sail single or short handed the furler is the way to go.

Years ago I damaged my right knee changing a hanked on sail. I was kneeling down and the boat went up a steep wave. Boat started to come down whilst I carried on up. As I was coming down the boat started to come back up. My right knee took the impact. Wasn't anything I could have done to stop it. Hurt for over a week and I was taking ibuprofen like mad.

 

[dunedin]

There will always be a few who reject improvements that are available - but for 99% of cruisers I suspect a furling system is far better.
Safer as no trips to the foredeck to change sails, avoids filling the cabin with loads of wet sails - and generally faster as will optimise sail size to suit conditions, as opposed to fitting smaller jib in case wind gets up.
Even short handed racers like Open 60s use them.
A quality sail on a furler with a foam luff will set well. often the people who say sails don’t set well on a furler haven’t invested in decent sails. 10 year old cheap sails without foam luff won’t work, whether on furler or Hank on. And as many have posted, most cruisers fail to winch in the jib tight enough upwind anyway.

 

[rotrax]

Unless racing or in search of ultimate performance, furlers are the way to go. IMHO, of course.

 

[Fr J Hackett]

Unless racing or in search of ultimate performance, furlers are the way to go. IMHO, of course.

And if racing it wouldn't be hanks it would be a luff tape.

Why anyone would contemplate piston hanks on anything other than a sail set on a demountable inner stay or perhaps a staysail is beyond me.

 

[crewman]

Hanked on foresails have the advantage

 

[crewman]

Hanked on sails have the advantage of staying attached to the forestay when dropped. (e.g when using the spinnaker) Luff taped sails need to be fed in to the foil on rehoisting.

 

[Chiara’s slave]

Furler here too, just too old to be bothered with hanks, yet deep down I hate it. The whole shabang is clumpy, ugly and in a strange way un-seaman like. Nothing lovelier than a curled hanked on jib doing its stuff... clean looking right to the deck and well, just right....
When I think how long it took ole dad to ready the boat all those years ago. Pulling all the sails out of the cabin and lashing them on.....main as well. I suspect after all was done we had to have a cuppa....Sailing nowdays is so much easier.

Our furling drum is below deck, in a little self draining compartment forward of the anchor locker. The foresail sets as close to the deck as you could wish. The furling line runs below deck, in a tube, emerging in the cockpit coaming via a clutch and turning blocks in the top locker. Handily next to a ST winch, if you need it. A hanked on jib would look scruffy compared to that.

 

[johnalison]

It occurs to me that every innovation, or to be modern, new innovation, looks ugly when it first appears. Jib furlers, sugar-scoop sterns, blue sacrificial strips, in-mast furling mains, twin wheels, radar reflectors, you name it, but in time we get used to them even if we don’t actually get to like them. It is even possible that at some future date I will get used to stack-packs, but I’m less sure about that.

 

[zoidberg]

It occurs to me that every innovation, or to be modern, new innovation, looks ugly when it first appears.

Hi-rise catamarans with roof-top lounge-gardens...

 

[winch2]

Our furling drum is below deck, in a little self draining compartment forward of the anchor locker. The foresail sets as close to the deck as you could wish. The furling line runs below deck, in a tube, emerging in the cockpit coaming via a clutch and turning blocks in the top locker. Handily next to a ST winch, if you need it. A hanked on jib would look scruffy compared to that.

Yes Im afraid Iam rather stuck in the past with full length keels, alcohol stoves, hemp rope and a clumpy old gaff flapping around me earoles. Having said that a lot of modern innovations are terribly expensive too.

 

[Chiara’s slave]

Hi-rise catamarans with roof-top lounge-gardens...

That will still be ugly on Judgement day.

 

[oldmanofthehills]

Sailing two up its furling for me. Navigator hates it if I go forward on deck in poor weather, and we dont seems to have much chop free time in western english channel, so I dont like it much either as boat rolls and pitch poles. And I simply wont leave cockpit without some one on watch at night. Harness wont save me if I am dragged alongside while others sleep.

Furling stops all that risk, and as a safety engineer elimination of risk is better than mitigation of risk. I tried our old small fore sail as a hank on solent for good days and it just about worked after the old genny tore in half but normally its not worth the effort to set it

My new genoa is a bit too big and sets slightly oddly when furled but our boat hates heading close into wind anyway and makes more lee than it improves heading up we push it too much. For racers it might be otherwise but only an idiot would choose an LM27 for racing

 

[capnsensible]

That will still be ugly on Judgement day.

But not to their owners.......

 

[zoidberg]

But not to their owners.......

Yus.

 

[capnsensible]

Didn't know that many people had catamarans?

 

[Chiara’s slave]

Yes Im afraid Iam rather stuck in the past with full length keels, alcohol stoves, hemp rope and a clumpy old gaff flapping around me earoles. Having said that a lot of modern innovations are terribly expensive too.

A furler would rather spoil the look of yours then. Though I see modern innovations on a lot of gaffers down my way. Theres one in the harbour with veneered carbon spars, and lots have gone for dyneema standing rigging. The spars, not sure how much more expensive than wood these days, and dyneema is a full diy job, saving quite a bit, I am sure. And so much kinder on gear and crew than galvanised. They sometimes get around hank on jibs with a zip luff on their dyneema forestay. And of course a tape luff yankee on a compact furler on the end of the bowsprit. We essentially have that, a Code 0 in our case.

 

[winch2]

A furler would rather spoil the look of yours then

Well we put up with it and there's enough ye olde gear on our boat to offset the faded UV strip and clunky old drum spoiling the forward view....and the trade off is easy, comfortable sailing.

 

[Chiara’s slave]

Well we put up with it and there's enough ye olde gear on our boat to offset the faded UV strip and clunky old drum spoiling the forward view....and the trade off is easy, comfortable sailing.

I would agree.