Furlers vs hanks

[DJE]

Seems to be a property of how close the attachment point is to the top, no?

Yes. Mine's about a foot or two below the main forestay attachment on a masthead rig. No running backstays or check stays. You also need to make sure that the deck attachment point is strong enough. Mine has a fitting on the underside of the deck through bolted to the one above. This lower fitting is then tied down to the hull with a short wire stay and a rigging screw.

 

[justanothersailboat]

Thanks. Deck attachment point I heard about, and already put in something for that when I was fixing something else.

Do you need adjustable backstay tension?

 

[andsarkit]

Every time these discussions come up, I end up envying people who have cutters or removable inner forestays. I will probably add a removable inner forestay eventually but am a bit uncertain about how strong the top-end attachment point needs to be and how it can be constructed - some masts you can buy purposemade parts but mine is too old.

Wichard mast fitting

This fitting comes in two parts which can be slid into a slot and then bolted together entirely from outside the mast. Pop rivets then hold the flanges inside the mast.
This one for 6-10mm forestays was a bit large for my 8m boat so I made one up from 2mm stainless instead of 3mm. Very easy to make and almost zero cost.

 

[dunedin]

Every time these discussions come up, I end up envying people who have cutters or removable inner forestays. I will probably add a removable inner forestay eventually but am a bit uncertain about how strong the top-end attachment point needs to be and how it can be constructed - some masts you can buy purposemade parts but mine is too old.

I guess the benefits or otherwise of an inner forestay probably depend a lot upon (1) type of boat, (2) how you sail and (3) where you sail.

Firstly, it probably makes most sense for boats from the 70s / 80s etc that aped IOR racers - with a tiny mainsail and very large genoa, 150% or more. More modern (and also older) boats with a fractional rig, large mainsail and smaller jib tend to benefit less. Certainly we put reef 2 in the main before we start to think about putting in a reef in the furling jib, which is only 106%.

Secondly, with modern forecasts, going upwind into a F6+ is pretty much an optional activity for most cruisers. If you need to go out into that then you have probably got your passage planning wrong.
And from what I see, even in F4 upwind, most boats seem to be motoring rather than sailing, so inner forestay would be redundant for them.

Thirdly of course where you sail makes a difference. I would definitely want an inner forestay with Solent jib and storm jib options if crossing the North Atlantic eastbound, as well beyond forecast timescales and likely to get a bashing at some point. By contrast, lots of people sail westbound to the Caribbean without inner forestays with no issues.

Before investing in an inner forestay, for most coastal cruisers investment in a high quality foresail with foam luff would give better return.

 

[DJE]

Do you need adjustable backstay tension?

No need to adjust the backstay but you need some way of tensioning the inner forestay. Mine came with a Highfield lever which tried to bite me every time I used it and never really developed enough tension. I replaced that with a Wichard ratchet tensioner which is the bees knees and can be operated with one hand - but it was hideously expensive.

 

[justanothersailboat]

Dunedin - all good points. I have that older style with 135% masthead genoa on a roller, fairly fresh and with foam luff, and the roller is super for the first part of reefing it... would not want to be without it! but the foam luff can only go so far. By the time I have rolled away enough genoa to balance out two reefs in the main, it's getting a bit sad.

My placid tub will never be an upwind machine (and is realistically probably not worth upgrading, but I try not to let that stop me) but I do choose to sail as much as I can, within the bounds of feeling safe and in control. I feel like my passage planning has failed if I have to motor! But only short coastal cruises where "go the other way", "go less far so low VMG doesn't matter", and "don't go today" are popular options. If I did things like Atlantic crossings where there are fewer opportunities to change my mind and go to the pub, I assume I would need a change of both attitude and equipment.

 

[Stemar]

There was an article in PBO years back; someone was asking if they should get a spinnaker or a cruising chute. The answer was neither, far better to spend the money on a folding/feathering prop, because that'll give you an extra knot or so most of the time on any point of sail.

I rather think the same argument applies to thoughts of adding an inner forestay to make a cutter rig.

 

[geem]

There was an article in PBO years back; someone was asking if they should get a spinnaker or a cruising chute. The answer was neither, far better to spend the money on a folding/feathering prop, because that'll give you an extra knot or so most of the time on any point of sail.

I rather think the same argument applies to thoughts of adding an inner forestay to make a cutter rig.

For our kind of sailing, it's more than that. The on watch crew can swap headsails in the night without going on the foredeck. Flying a sail of the right size. My experience of a reefed genoa is poor sail shape and ultimately the sail doesn't last as long. We already have a folding prop

 

[Stemar]

As ever, it's horses for courses. What's right for me, pottering around the Solent on a less than nimble cat won't be right for you crossing oceans. However, in both cases, the ability to manage all the sails from the cockpit is a major plus, especially when the wind gets up.

 

[prestomg27]

I think actually, on reflection, you are all correct about roller furling and I am slightly perverse in my going the hank on direction. Indeed i have found roller furling perfectly wonderful on my boats in the past. However, this perversion extends beyond sailing. I prefer a steel frame bike to my carbon framed road bike. I prefer rim brakes to my disc braked bike, despite disc brakes being functionally better. I prefer my triumph gt6 to my modern car. Despite the gt6 being rubbish in comparison. I suppose I am very lucky i don't like wooden boats.

 

[Trident]

I swapped to hanks from a Harken fuller. It sails much better and comes down in any conditions whilst the Harken, though very new and their top of the range model, left me running up front to try and get it to roll the sail in on several occasions - the last being very dangerous and left me soaked and going under water with the bow for a couple of minutes til I got it away.

Having said that, the change was then shortly followed by a rotator cuff injury that mean it was impossible to lift my genoa up to get the hanks on the wire so spent a season only having the 100% laminate jib that weighs less than a bag of air to use. Obviously limiting.

Obviously having an 18 foot wide foredeck with a nice safe net to work on makes things easier.

My money no object bucket list now is for a pair of structural luff continuous line furlers in a solent rig with a screecher on the outer on a prodder and the jib behind. Easy to roll, can be left up on long passages but also if any issues with rolling away come up I can just blow the halyard and safety returns. With two more structural foresails to swap out on to the same furlers for storm and downwind I think I would be happy. Sadly about £25000 poorer so I'll stick with my hanks for now.

 

[Trident]

Deleted double post

 

[samfieldhouse]

Every time these discussions come up, I end up envying people who have cutters or removable inner forestays. I will probably add a removable inner forestay eventually but am a bit uncertain about how strong the top-end attachment point needs to be and how it can be constructed - some masts you can buy purposemade parts but mine is too old.

This is exactly what I have. It's transformed my sailing by expanding the range of conditions I can sail in. It's not expensive, easy to fit and works perfectly on my 40 year old mast.

Boat is a 1979 28ft Cobra with a 160% furling genoa. She's a heavy boat so in breezes up to 14kts its a fantastic sail and really gets her moving. Above 14 knots its completely unusable and doesn't really reef at all well, plus when one puts a reef in the sail is too high up the forestay.

Last year I fitted a removable inner forestay. Jimmy Green made it up in Dyneema, £90. The existing mast crane where the forestay attaches had a second, parallel attachment point. It's basically a fork. I popped the second forestay into there. As its at the mast head no extra back stays are needed.I tension the stay with a 16:1 reduction pulley system.

The sail hoists on the spinnaker halyard (also at the mast head.

I got lucky with the sail; It's a tri-radial carbon/mylar laminate that had been made for a Sonata, but the sailmaker encountered a measurement conundrum so it was 'priced to sell' - Kemps are fantastic and I can't recommend them highly enough. It fits my bill of being flat and stiff for beating up wind in the Solent. It can sit low to the deck and has a 3m foot. With a reef in the main I can now sail comfortably in 25kts.

It's fantastic!

 

[trapper guy]

with being hearing impaired, therefore balance is not as great as it could be, i would say that furlers, while not providing ideal sail profile for a racer kinda guy, are the sensible option.
and heres me, owning a boat with a hank on sail system...
also in favour of furlers is the easy, ready, convenient storage.
my bow bunk is unusable due to the more than half dozen sail bags stored there, including a spinnaker.
id like a furler system, as they are far easier for solo sailing.
but i dont want to change the originality of my boat.

 

[justanothersailboat]

That sounds really good, samfieldhouse! And your staysail - has soft shackles?

With a slightly less extreme genoa than you I don't have quite such a drastic cutoff of effectiveness but the problem is similar. Thanks for explaining how you solved this, it sounds simpler and cheaper than some approaches. Best of both worlds really!

 

[flaming]

When your boat is principally a race boat, the cruising you do has to be done with hank on, or rather tuff luff, jibs.

In cruising mode I take 3 jibs. A retired J3 which is a full sized but flat cut jib that has the 16-24ish range in race mode, a J4, which is a heavy weather jib we use in 24kts+ true in race mode, and the storm jib.
If I was just going out for the weekend and the forecast was light I might pick up an old J1 instead of the J4. I wouldn't take less than 2 "regular" jibs (excluding the storm jib) because when bagged in their long headsail bags and stacked on the sidedecks they double as excellent curtains....

In the size range we're at, i.e 32 foot, honestly dealing with dropping a jib is just not an issue. You can easily flake the halyard, release the clutch then wander forward and pull it onto the deck singlehanded. The bungees we have setup then keep the thing on the deck until you get in to sort it out.

Sure, if I was buying a boat to purely use as a cruiser, then I'd probably do things a little differently. Though I'm honestly not sure how differently. I'm getting rather sold on the idea of structural luff furling sails. So were I to be specifying a rig for a 40ish foot fast cruiser now (the sort of thing my Dad had) then I'd consider a 100% or slightly less structural luff furler on a halyard lock and tack point just inside the forestay, coupled with a bare wire forestay that I could set a larger light sail on. In that way I'd have a great medium to heavy wind sail that I could rig before setting out and operated on a furler, but also plenty of horsepower when the breeze dropped.

 

[lustyd]

or rather tuff luff, jibs.

From what I’ve seen tuff luff is essentially just a furler without the furling. What’s stopping you using a roller reefing sail and furler but changing sails while racing?

 

[flaming]

From what I’ve seen tuff luff is essentially just a furler without the furling. What’s stopping you using a roller reefing sail and furler but changing sails while racing?

Quite a bit...

The foil is quite different, has to be a lot stiffer in roller furling than tuff luff, you need a top swivel and a drum at the bottom, both of which cost you hoist and you would not want to leave in place for racing.

 

[justanothersailboat]

From what I’ve seen tuff luff is essentially just a furler without the furling. What’s stopping you using a roller reefing sail and furler but changing sails while racing?

Some roller reefing kit says, right there in the manual, that they intend you do just that. Mine does. The drum is short enough, and far enough down, that it only costs you the bit of available forestay length that would be seriously arguing with the pulpit anyway. I think you're meant to park the top swivel at the bottom, getting quite a bit of hoist back. I've not tried. No doubt not good enough for a purist racer but maybe a reasonable compromise for the less dedicated.

Even if not racing it seems fairly practical to have two sizes of foresail and just swap which one is on the roller, based on expected conditions over the next day or so. It's one of the options I am looking into. The only problem there is that taking off a (relatively) large genoa on my own starts to get less fun in just exactly the conditions where the smaller one would be desirable.

 

[flaming]

Some roller reefing kit says, right there in the manual, that they intend you do just that. Mine does. The drum is short enough, and far enough down, that it only costs you the bit of available forestay length that would be seriously arguing with the pulpit anyway. I think you're meant to park the top swivel at the bottom, getting quite a bit of hoist back. I've not tried. No doubt not good enough for a purist racer but maybe a reasonable compromise for the less dedicated.

True enough, but as you say, the makeup of the foil (heavier, and stiffer), the increased difficulty to adjust forestay tension and the lack of ability to get the foot of the sail right down to the deck for the endplating, make it a bit of a non starter if the primary purpose of the boat is to win races.

The Elan we used to race started off with that system (with the drum and swivel removed completely) but it made a big difference to our performance when the forestay was swapped out to an easily adjusted one with a tuff-luff.