In Boom Furling

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Danestream

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I have been looking at in boom furling and wondered how many of you kind souls have had experience of them. They look the business for what we are after although some of them seem expensive. So far we have looked at Hood, Profurl and the Schaefer one. We have also been told about one from Australia but don't know if anyone is doing it in Europe. Any thoughts or advice would be fantastic before I find we've bought the wrong thing!!
Many thanks
Jilly

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I have had limited experience of in- boom reefing(sailed two boats with it fitted,and not impressed),however there are lots of people on the forum who with a bit more basic information in your profile,ie size and type of boat will give you chapter and verse.
FWIW I think the most perfect way of main handling is fully battened with lazy jacks.
But size of boat is critical on a 60 footer I might tend towards in-mast with hydraulic gubbins/forums/images/icons/smile.gif

<hr width=100% size=1>If it can't be fixed with a lump hammer dont fit it!
 
Jilly,

Also, no experience towards these systems. However, I do know a small company, based in Holland who won an award somewhere back in 1997 for their system. Here's a <A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.m-sails.com/> link</A>.
Also, there's a link to an English document <A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.acmo.fr/nautisme/nouveaute/nouveaute_nautisme_E.htm> uk text link</A>.

Don't know if the system is available in the UK but at least it gives some information. I am not connected to any of the mentioned firm but did buy a Cruising Spi from M-sails once...

Rene.

<hr width=100% size=1>Climate is what you expect, weather is what you get
 
Jilly,
Do like the look of the Profurl system, but having a good single line reefing system on my own boat, don't see I'd really need it.

The problem with them all is that the boom must be perfectly angled for the sail to roll up around it - single line slab reefing doesn't suffer this problem, and costs much less ....

Rick in Oz

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Hope you get enough good advice to avoid heartbreak with the wrong in boom reefing but I had a Sailtainer system on a previous boat for 10 years and would not recommend it (although no longer marketed). I don't know of anyone in 20 years sailing who would buy an in boom reefing system. I agree with Colmce in all that he says and also add the fact that you dare not go off the wind when hoisting the main as with in boom reefing the bolt rope friction is enormous and is easily damaged.
A good slab reefing system with the lines fed back into the cockpit has IMHO stood the test of time.
Only an opinion but hope it helps.

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i spoke in depth to a bigwig in the bordeaux yard CN, now part of beneteau, at dusseldorf, who said they wd not have anything to do with inboom furling, total pain after the first season or so.

initially, it seems good.

Longer term, thinking about it, a wet salty sail simply sits in its own damp roll, with no significantly easy means of draining either after a sail nor in the rain. Vertical in-mast has no such probs, tho these aren't always trouble free but don't inherently have storage probs.

so i wdn't havem

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Sorry, bit new to the forum thing - hadn't realised the significance of the profile part so we've added more information.

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But doesn't single line reefing mean lots of rope? I was told at a show last year that there had to be special blocks in the boom as well so Iwe thought that the in-boom bit would be better as we wouold be able see into the boom if anything went wrong?

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We were searching the internet and found them. They're called Furlboom but don't know anyone up here who's had anything from them.

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Yes you do need lots of line for single line reefing and as there are at least 4 turning blocks involved can have inherent friction problems,but if retro fitted can be fitted externally to boom so that if anything does snag you can get to it with hammer or axe to fix.
I retro fitted a single line reefing system to a 28 footer using a set up similar to the one shown on the Barton marine site and it worked incredibly well when the line had been dekinked(serves me right for sourcing line from chandlers cheap bin).
I'm sure that the line reefing which uses opposing blocks in the boom is very good but I am always concerned about rope and blocks which I cant get to easily.

<hr width=100% size=1>If it can't be fixed with a lump hammer dont fit it!
 
Jilly,

I have a boat coming in towards the end of August with an In-Boom system. I looked into the 4 or 5 major players and decided on a Danish system (www.fulerboom.dk). The boat is also Danish (X-Yacht) so Fulerboom is doing the installation.

I received allot of good information from the Practical Sailor website (www.practical-sailor.com). They have done two comparisons of the major players in this topic over the last few years. You will have to search for the review as well as chipping some spare change in order to get the full pdf.

-John


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<FWIW I think the most perfect way of main handling is fully battened with lazy jacks.>
Great for recovering the mainsail, but a pain on hoisting, due to battens fouling the lazyjacks - even when dead into wind.
Also, when very heavy winds, bag on boom can be a problem when trying to put sail ties around sail to stop it flying (unless you rely entirely on the zipper - which still needs someone up on the coachroof to deal with).
Still nothing as good as manually slab reefing on ramshorns at the mast IMHO.


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