Mousing line lost - threading forestay through furler - suggestions?

skyflyer

skyflyer

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The mousing line broke so I now have to try and thread an 8mm forestay through a Schaeffer furling foil. For those that are unfamiliar with the construction, it is a series of hollow tubes (approx 25mm internal diameter) connected by riveting to a similar outside diameter cylinder about 100mm long, with about a 9mm hole through it.

So, as you push the cable through the first hole it is free to whip about inside the furling tube until it hits the end of the next connecting rod section - unless you are extraordinarily lucky and hit the 9mm hole dead centre! There are six connection sections so you need to be very lucky, frequently!

Actually its not quite as bad as I stated above as the internal section isn't circular due to the grooves for the headsail bolt rope. So in fact the bottom of the 9mm hole is level with the bottom of the furler tube, but it still needs to be central laterally - this is the exploded diagram http://www.schaefermarine.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/SchaeferFurlers2100.pdf

So - any bright ideas how to thread the forestay?

Thanks in anticipation - someone must have had this problem before ( I hope!)
 
I have found a few small nuts ( threaded, not squirrel type ) on a length of whipping twine works well as a mousing line; you don't say if the foil is rigged or not, if it is gravity should do the trick - but you have to get up there, think ladders as well as bosun's chairs, but think safety above all, it's not worth a broken back.

If the foil is off, hold it up at the feed end of the line and jiggle.
 
I have never tried this, only read about it. Attach a vacuum cleaner nozzle to one end and suck a length of very light thread through the foil. Use this to pull through the mousing line. No idea if it will work, but it might be worth trying.
 
If you grind the end of the wire (bullet nose) this will help when pushing the wire down, if you also turn the wire clock wise (when hitting a joiner) this may help in getting it through the joiners. (Remember if you put a bullet nose on the wire, it will need to be cut straight when you fit the Sta Lok) easier to do if Forestay wire is cut longer then required.
 
AndrewL said:
I have never tried this, only read about it. Attach a vacuum cleaner nozzle to one end and suck a length of very light thread through the foil. Use this to pull through the mousing line. No idea if it will work, but it might be worth trying.
Click to expand...

This works really well.

You could try a bit of ribbon tied on the end of the light line to help it to get sucked through.

Good luck!

Tony.
 
Jabs said:
This works really well.

You could try a bit of ribbon tied on the end of the light line to help it to get sucked through.

Good luck!

Tony.
Click to expand...

Definitely worth a try - thanks. The foil is off the boat, (mast unstepped for new standing rigging). Need to borrow a vacuum now - hopefully the yard might have (an industrial) one handy!
 
Jabs said:
This works really well.

You could try a bit of ribbon tied on the end of the light line to help it to get sucked through.

Good luck!

Tony.
Click to expand...

In this case the ribbon is called a pig. When fiber optic cables were first being run through conduit (miles of it) they started using pigs, but found that the cable would always snap. So they used smaller and smaller pigs, ending up with none. Instead the outer casing nwas textured and the air flow over the texture is enough to rattle the cables for many 10's of miles round any number of bends.
Use a ribbon by all means, but if the thread keeps snapping then maybe just let the air flow do the trick.
The ususal method is to blow, not suck (bit like eggs really)
 
skyflyer said:
Definitely worth a try - thanks. The foil is off the boat, (mast unstepped for new standing rigging). Need to borrow a vacuum now - hopefully the yard might have (an industrial) one handy!
Click to expand...

If that doesn't work, I bought 2 of these http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/cable-access-kit-n86cu to do the selfsame thing (small boat!) but worked well, and you could easily get 3 or 4 if necessary as they join onto each other.
 
AndrewL said:
I have never tried this, only read about it. Attach a vacuum cleaner nozzle to one end and suck a length of very light thread through the foil. Use this to pull through the mousing line. No idea if it will work, but it might be worth trying.
Click to expand...

I've never heard of that before .... but I have now!

Filed away in memory for future reference.

Thank you.

Richard
 
If the mast is off the boat as stated, wouldn't it be easier to drop a weighted line down the inside of the mast and essentially just re run a new mousing line?
 
RESULT! :)

The vacuum cleaner trick worked a treat!

For future reference we taped over all the joins and rivets, taped the cleaner nozzle to the end of the furler and used a "bricklayers line". (about 1mm diameter i guess)

First attempt we just used the line but it stopped feeding quite quickly, so then I tied a tiny piece of cloth (about 1cm sq) to the end and it just flew through - took about tens seconds to feed.

Top tip - mark the length required before you start feeding otherwise it will simply fill the hoover with 100 metres of line!
 
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