Roller and In mast furling....any good for blue water?

Gravity seems pretty reliable as a reefing mechanism for my junk sail. Much much faster (about half a second) than any modern methods. Also beat half the fleet in the last RTI.
Sail always in the right place - not left with a ridiculous triangle halfway up forestay.
Worth considering for blue water if you are worried about ease and reliability of reefing.
 
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Only those who do not have one will recommend against an in-mast furling.

Once tried one you will never go back. Jams are easy to avoid if you know what you are doing. They happen only to those who do not.

Besides, you would hardly see a 46ft+ blue water cruiser without in-mast or boom furling main.

If you will get a conventional main sail, you will spend time envying those with in-mast furling and talking them down in the forum to comfort yourself for your choice.

With regards to the headsail, not even winning racers use an hank on sail nowadays! Just think at the time saved switching from spi to head and back. I see hank on only on old and low budget boats.
 
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haydude said:
Only those who do not have one will recommend against an in-mast furling.

Once tried one you will never go back. Jams are easy to avoid if you know what you are doing. They happen only to those who do not.

Besides, you would hardly see a 46ft+ blue water cruiser without in-mast or boom furling main.

If you will get a conventional main sail, you will spend time envying those with in-mast furling and talking them down in the forum to comfort yourself for your choice.

With regards to the headsail, not even winning racers use an hank on sail nowadays! Just think at the time saved switching from spi to head and back. I see hank on only on old and low budget boats.
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Bit of a generalisation there - I have sailed many thousands of miles with inmast reefing and many day sails but I would not personally choose it if I had the choice of speccing a new cruising boat. Presume you have not tried a boat with a ball bearing track and cars running the main up and down?

As for those people jamming theirs, it is either set up incorrectly or being used incorrectly - they are not difficult to get right!

The boat with the jam looks like an Ovni
 
Hi Haydude

I’ve tried and went back.

“Besides, you would hardly see a 46ft+ blue water cruiser without in-mast or boom furling main.”

I’m writing this from a ‘blue water’ anchorage (the water is a beautiful blue and a turtle has just surfaced nearby) there are 13 ‘blue water’ cruisers in the bay a good number are 46’+ none are in-mast furling.
 
mike_bryon said:
Hi Haydude

I’m writing this from a ‘blue water’ anchorage (the water is a beautiful blue and a turtle has just surfaced nearby) there are 13 ‘blue water’ cruisers in the bay a good number are 46’+ none are in-mast furling.
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Lucky! I admit I am on my sofa and the only blue water cruisers I see are on Yachting World.
 
webcraft said:
What use is a system where you can only reef the mainsail head to wind? What happens if you have no engine?

- W
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Nothing is perfect, but you can reef when off the wind with care and understanding of how it works. Slab reefing and lazy jacks is not perfect and care is needed with raising sail and reefing. I have two boats, one with slab and the other within mast. Both have their good and bad points, but the 37 footer with in mast is comparatively easier to handle than the 26 footer
 
Tranona said:
Nothing is perfect, but you can reef when off the wind with care and understanding of how it works. Slab reefing and lazy jacks is not perfect and care is needed with raising sail and reefing. I have two boats, one with slab and the other within mast. Both have their good and bad points, but the 37 footer with in mast is comparatively easier to handle than the 26 footer
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"nothing is perfect" - it is - see post 21
 
Tranona said:
Pete

Thats a very old fashioned view! Roller rigs are pretty much idiot proof now and almost universal (at least for forestays). Also the density of sailing in most parts of the world is such that getting things fixed is not the problem it was. If you read all the surveys and accounts of problems when cruising they are almost always related to domestic gear and particularly electrics and elecronics rather than mechanical systems.

Furling sails are no longer "new technology" having been around for over 30 years and well over 50% of new boats are fitted with in mast furling. Despite its alleged superiority, in boom furling has failed to catch on except in certain small niches. Many manufacturers have tried it and nearly all have failed, which suggests it is not the good idea some people think it is.

In my experience in mast furling is a bit like oysters - horrible until you have tried them! For a cruising boat I would not go back to a "conventional" sail, although I recognise the small loss in ultimate performance, the flexibility and ease of use more than compensates.
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Agree when we first had our boat was a little uncertain because it had in mast furling. My uncertainty grew in the first week when I jammed it two or three times, but since then have learned the technique (which actually was not difficult but being an idiot I thought brute force and ignorance would win the day). In the last 18 months of liveaboard cruising have never jammed it again and would now not be without it. Being liveabaords we find the slight reduction in performance of the sail is small beer compared to the convenience of it.
 
Tranona said:
Despite its alleged superiority, in boom furling has failed to catch on except in certain small niches. Many manufacturers have tried it and nearly all have failed, which suggests it is not the good idea some people think it is.
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Really? Which in-boom manufacturers have failed?

After a season of minor problems with my Profurl in-boom reefing system, mainly due to a clueless distributor that set it up wrongly together with my own mistakes before fully understanding the correct technique, I have now joined those people who think that it IS a good idea.

It gives me a beautifully setting, fully-battened mainsail that has no danger of jamming half-way up in a rising gale and can be furled from the cockpit. What's not to like?
 
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