Roller Furling intructions.

jimboaw

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26 Sep 2002
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I am a little puzzled by the owner instalation instructions for my new Hood 808 furling gear They, "Hood" instruct you to assemble all the foils on the ground then hoist the whole assembly taking great care not to distort too much as you raise it. Not a problem on smaller boats but when you have an 10mm headstay of 50ft you are dealing with a lot of weight. My question is this: Why not assemble it with the headstay attached at the masthead adding foil sections from the bottom up from the comfort of the foredeck? The uppermost foil section is the one that is supposed to be cut to finish just shy of the swage. If you have made an error with your tape measure(a strong possibility) you now have the opportunity to make adjusments to the top foil section as long as you erred on the side of caution. The very idea of hoisting these foil sections with any possibility of distortion does not thrill me.
 

aidancoughlan

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24 Jun 2002
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I've seen a very large Roller system that was assembled on the ground in the local boatyard and hoisted when the mast was stepped. You are going to have to do this whenever the mast is unstepped anyway, so I assume it must be 'normal' practise. I doubt if they are that fragile as long as you apply common sense when handling it.
I have a Roller gear to fit myself, but it's a Facnor - the adjustment is made on the bottom foil which is telescopic to handle adjustment without cutting. In your case it sounds like following the method you propose, you would have to take them all down again, cut the top section and hoist them all up again to try again. If you do this a few times, connecting and unconnecting the foils will be a pain and might possibly damage them more than hoisting all at once?
best of luck...
 
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