Rotostay Nightmare

[STATUE]

An incident yesterday awakened this (perhaps unfounded) nightmare.

Beating into a 6, I reefed the genoa a bit and the reefing line jumped out of the drum.

Once at my destination and with plenty of sea room I turned the rope cage forks (there are four) to get the reefing line where it should be.

My nightmare is by turning the rope cage forks can the stud toggle undo from the 'bottle screw' of the drum?

I have the diagram for the drum assembly, but it still doesn't quieten my fears

 

[vyv_cox]

I don't think I can picture your reefing mechanism and cannot comment directly. However, your bottle screw should be positively locked using a split pin or something similar so that there is no possibility of it coming off.

 

[scotts_mist]

On my rotostay, there's a lock nut which prevents the bottle screw undoing if I rotate the furling drum.

You could always give XW Rigging a call (Rotostay is out of business but XW Rigging is run by the old owner's son and they still supply spares).

They were tremendously helpful to me this week when I needed some help with my rotostay swivel joint (stop sniggering in the back row).

 

[Seajet]

There's a chap at Thornham Marina in Chichester Harbour West Sussex who used to work at Rotostay and often checks them out for people, sorry I don't remember his name but I'm sure a call to them would put you on to him.

01243 375335

 

[Pinnacle]

You could always give XW Rigging a call (Rotostay is out of business but XW Rigging is run by the old owner's son and they still supply spares).

+1

 

[Cardo]

There's a chap at Thornham Marina in Chichester Harbour West Sussex who used to work at Rotostay and often checks them out for people, sorry I don't remember his name but I'm sure a call to them would put you on to him.

01243 375335

Barry, of Barry's Rigging.

 

[VicS]

Barry, of Barry's Rigging.

Barry Locke.

Helpful guy I believe.

Contact details are on Thornham Marina's website

 

[prv]

As Vyv says, make sure the screw is positively locked so that it cannot turn. Personally I prefer open-barrelled rigging screws with split-pins, but inherited mostly closed-barrel screws on Kindred Spirit. These were ok with locknuts top and bottom, but I think if they were under/inside a roller furling unit, where they couldn't easily be seen and could potentially be unscrewed, I would mouse them with wire as we did with the four-foot-long ones on Stavros. Get a roll of monel rigging wire, feed it through the hole in the middle of the screw barrel, then secure it to the forks or eyes at the ends. There's a particular pattern to this which is easy to demonstrate but hard to describe, but really any order will do as long as it secures the barrel to the eye so that it can't turn.

Pete