What make of furling headgear?

[john_morris_uk]

I am told that our Rotostay is so old that some of the parts are no longer available. In particular the swage fitting at the bottom would need to be machined especially. (The rigger said he had had a quote for £500!! Whilst I can get a part machined for a very very small fraction of that cost, perhaps the time has come to buy new instead?

Problems with the old include,

Only one luff groove in the foil. (I would like two so I can set two headsails down wind one day)
The new foil sections I require cost £88 each.
The joiners are £25 each (and I need four)

Problem is what do I buy? Facnor? Rotostay? Harken?

Whats the consensus for a 10mm forestay on a 11.5 M boat?

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[malcp]

I have Furlex 300S headgear on my boat and it works well. Also has 2 luff groves.
Standing rigging is 8mm for an 11m boat.
Hope this helps

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[30boat]

I have just fitted a Facnor furler and was really impressed by the quality and design.Very strong and easy to fit too.You don't have to cut the extrusions to length as there is a telescopic section that can take quite a large gap.

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[Robin]

We had to replace the Rotostay on our previous boat and the later Rotostays are different, like most other gears the foil now rotates around the stay and therefore there is no second bearing at the top. We used the latest Rotostay and it worked very well, twin grooves are standard I believe however you might find the bolt rope size on your sail could be too big for the smaller grooves on the twin version, your sailmaker will know and it can be changed.

Our latest boat has Furlex gear (Selden) and this too is excellent. You could talk to Crusader Sails in Poole (01202 670580), they sell all of the different gears as well as doing package deals of gear + sail. They replaced the Rotostay on our old boat including the installation and they also rebuilt/serviced the Furlex on our current boat as part of our rigging replacement.

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[john_morris_uk]

Many thanks for the comments (so far). I am told that the latest Rotostays are also single groove and the choice seems to be between Furlex and Harken (and possibly Facnor) Furlex claim to be the market leader with a very good worldwide support. However I installed a Harken main traveller system on the last boat and it worked really well (mind you any new one ought to...)

Costs seem to be on a whim at the moment.

Costing of Furlexes (Model 300s)

Dealer one (the local main agent) £2320 and we'll fit it for free. "But I don't want it fitted and the mast is down anyway" OK then 10% off.

Dealer two £2000

Dealer three £1920

Dealer two when told about dealer three OK £1900 then

All local. I phoned the factory and they said - retail price....

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[PaulJ]

Before retiring and getting heavily stuck into my boat building project, I regularly found myself in quite nice parts of the world with time to kill so one of the things I used to do was go to the nearest marina or harbour and do some "research" for the boat I was planning....... and then retire to the nearest bar to think about the information I had gathered!

One of the things I looked at was furling gears and at a guess I would say that, around the med at any rate, there are as many Profurls in use as all the others put together. My thinking was that with that many in use in an area where there is so much competition, they are probably as good as I was going to find. My boat is an 11.9mtr cutter with 10mm forestays and I went for two Profurls...... 'Haven't tried them yet though, hopefully launching within the next couple of months!

Paul.

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[Oldhand]

I have used Harken since 1991 and found them totally reliable, easy to use and easy to maintain.

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[wagenaar]

A side remark with respect to a furler: I lost my mast one day and had to loosen all of the rigging since I did not have shears on board. However, if I would have had shears I most probably would not have been able to cut the cable of the furler, because it was 10 mm and the rigging was 7 mm. Having to loosen the cable in the furler turned out to be by far the worst job of loosening the rigging, because the furler hung over the pulpit, moving constantly its position due to the movement of the ship and it was dangerous to hung onto the pulpit with my hand.
On top it was very difficult to loosen the splitpin and I had to go back to the cabin to get a saw. Since that time I changed all the splitpins for rings.

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[StephenW]

I have Profurl which has been on the boat sice it was built (1990) and its still doing good service. Profurl go for a double seal maintenance free arrangement and seem well thought of by anyone I've spoken to who knows about furling gear. Recommended

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[AndrewB]

I asked the same question a few months back and got useful answers <A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.ybw.com/cgi-bin/forums/showthreaded.pl?Cat=&Board=pbo&Number=403699>HERE</A>.

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[roger]

I had a local sail maker and a local rigger both recommend Furlex. One said " we fit them to boats off round the world - they go - they come back, no problems" I've got one. They are very heavily engineered, come with a good instruction manual. Looking round the marinas, many of the competing ones look toylike.

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