Headsail luff sliders with furling gear

Poignard

Poignard

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Seeing the thread about mainsail sliders reminds that a friend of mine has fitted sliders to the luff off his furling genoa. He claims it makes headsail changing much easier but doesn't affect the ability to furl the sail. Agreed the whole point in having furling gear is to avoid changing sails, but there are times when it would be useful to be able change to a much smaller, better-setting sail without having the extra expense and complication of an inner forestay.

Anyone else have this arrangement?
 
I'm considetring it for another Genny I have - ex my Race boat without suitable luff to fit the groove ... only item you have to watch for is chafe of sale on the sliders, so as said to me - try not to use the reefing function with sliders under sail-cloth ... furled or unfurled fully is best !
 
Not quite clear how having sliders makes it easier? Don't you have to load each slider individually into the track? How is this easier than having a single bolt rope?

For some years we sailed without a furler, used a collection of foresails with bolt ropes and a twin-groove forestay extrusion. It worked very well and gave no problems. Easy to peel one jib off after hoisting the other.
 
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Not quite clear how having sliders makes it easier? Don't you have to load each slider individually into the track? How is this easier than having a single bolt rope?


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I have no personal experience with it but I suppose you can get all the sliders in the groove before you start to hoist the sail. That way you won't have yards of sail blowing around as you do when hoisting and feeding in a luff rope. Another possible benefit is that, if the roller furling gear failed, you could use it like a normal hanked-on sail. But, as I said, I have no experience of it and I'm just trying to find out who's tried it and if it worked satisfactorily
 
I have sliders on my furler. It works fine. I am not sure about why it should make headsail changing easier. I would rather have a luff rope in the foil and then use a prefeeder. As it is when hoisting single handed I have to feed a slide, hoist a bit etc. With a rope and a prefeeder all I would have to do is hoist.
 
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As it is when hoisting single handed I have to feed a slide, hoist a bit etc.

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Why would you need to do it that way?

Just feed in the slides one a a time so they are all bunched together at the bottom of the foil groove and then raise the halyard. Just like we used to do in the "old days" with hanked on jibs, or as we still do with mainsail slides . The only problem might be preventing those you had already inserted from slipping out of the groove but it shouldn't be difficult to devise something to overcome that
 
Yes, I have slides on my working jib so that I can use it on the furling gear. I have a short piece of rod that I can poke into the slot to stop the slides coming out when the haliard is let go. I am thinking of having the genoa fitted with slides too - It does seem to work for short handed sailing!

Neil
 
If I feed in the slides one at a time and 'bunch' them at the bottom of the foil they drop out before I can get the halyard up. As suggested I could probably devise something to hold them in - possibly a piece of shockcord tied round the bottom of the foil, but as I only raise the sail a couple of times a year - most of the time it just stays up - I haven't experimented with this.
 
I have two headsails with my boat, one is a large genoa with a bolt rope type arrangement that feeds up the grove of the furler, the other is an old (original) working jib, which has had the piston hanks removed and replaced with sliders. If its blowing (or forecast) F4 above I tend to set the jib on the furler before leaving my mooring, otherwise I use the genoa. I tend to sail in a similar manner using a combination of furling and sail changing as conditions dictate. My boat is smallish, 29 foot, so the sails are easily manageable on the foredeck by one person, which suits me as there are usually only two of us onboard.

The genoa with its bolt rope type arrangement is very easy to hoist and drop. The jib with its sliders is a different matter. The sliders tend to jam in the grove when hoisting. This makes it difficult to prefeed them all in. Usually, I get a few in, then hoist the sail until they jam, then pull it down a bit and hoist again, which gets it past where it was sticking, and so on until the sail is up. Not ideal.

I'm taking the jib to the sail makers this winter and getting the sliders replaced with a bolt rope identical to the one on the genoa. Then I'll fit one of these racing sail prefeeder devices, which seem very expensive for what they are, and hopefully that should solve everything.

It's my experience from racing that if a prefeeder is used, and the sail is neatly flaked at the luff then it should go straight up the groove without any hassle.
 
A tie-wrap ?

As in mainsail groove - drill a hole through both sides of groove and a split pin through ?
 
My boat is cutter rigged and it also has a large genoa with a rope feeder,i removed the genoa and fitted a small jib and a larger staysail,both fitted with mainsail sliders,it was the easyest and cheapest way of doing it and it works fine.
 
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