Yacht rigger Alicante/balearics

Carolwildbird

Carolwildbird

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I'm looking for a good rigger between here (Cartagena), Alicante (next stop) and the Balearics- ideally one who can look at my furling system on my in mast furling mainsail (Kemp/selden mast), Any recommendations? "Yacht riggers Mallorca" come up on a search on the selden site.

Apologies in advance for double posting- going to put this also on the liveaboard forum in case some local knowledge is forthcoming

ta!

carol
 
Hi Carol,

Cant help with a rigger, but what's the problem - you might be able to DIY with a bit of help, (thereagain, you might not :) ).

I had a Selden/Kemp on Rogue, and got fairly intimate with it at times,

Cheers

Richard
 
Furling problems

Ok.. Here's a description of the problem

I'm having real problems unfurling my main. Over the last year or so, I have had three riggers look at it, as well as others with lots of advice.... but still my in mast furling is getting worse. It gets jammed when I'm pulling it out (if I manage to pull it out, then I can furl it fine and it looks like its going in evenly etc).

But even if its, to all eyes, gone in fine, when I unfurl it, the leech tends to fold in and ruck up and get jammed - typically about 3/4 the way up the mast (3/4 the way out). The outhaul and unfurling line are getting stiffer- I used to be able to pull it out by hand just using the outhaul, then it needed a combination of the outhaul and the unfurling line in sequence (by hand still Ok), but now I need to winch it out - that's if it will come out at all.

Today we have spent 4 hours trying altering the halyard tension, the angle of the boom, the angle to the wind... we have had the sail up and down, taken out one of the battons (there are three short vertical ones), checked everything we can think of. The remaining step is to alter the backstay tension, as the mast has a very slight bend at the top ( probably caused by the contraction of the (relatively) new ceramic bits in the insulated backstay)- but I have very little adjustment left. There is a slight bag in the sail- so I might need to have it recut, but my latest advisor tells me it isnt too bad,

I want a rigger/selden furling specialist to look at the problem of why its getting more difficult, and whether there is a problem- for example - with the bearings, or something else. I also want to whether we can change a piece on the backstay to give me more possibility of adjustment (either a longer bottlescrew or a longer section of rigging wire from the screw to the bottom of the insulator)
 
Hi Carol

I had a similar problem with mine, cured by re-cutting the foot of the sail and re-doing the luff tape. The foot is now much straighter, it had a slight curve before.

If yours is not an issue with the mechanical aspect of the furling gear it sounds like it could be the age of the sail which is then bagging as it is furled. It takes very little friction from the cloth against the mast edge to stop it dead if the sail has folded during furling. (An easy way to free this type of jam is to use the winch at the mast. A turn or two back and forth will usually free it.)

You may have too much mast bend, but the area to look at could be the aft lowers. They may need some tension to pull the bend back in the middle.
 
Carol, I had a similar problem which various experts suggested was because the sail was old. I heard this so many times, I believed a rigger, and bought a new sail. It didn't solve the problem.

I also thought it was because the mast wasn't straight, so spent many hours with the rigging to straighten the mast, without success.

Turned out that the furling gear was loose i.e. The bit the luff of the sail slides up had gradually loosened, and it was easy to flop about inside the mast, even by hand.

Eventually discovered that a retaining screw in the tensioning bit at the bottom end of the furling gear was no longer located in it's hole, so ever time we furled or unfurled the thing got a bit looser. Tensioned the gear as per Selden instructions - to the point where you couldn't even move it by hand, and it worked fine for the 2500 miles back from Malta.

Is the pole thing that the luff slides up floppy/loose? If so, this could be the problem.

Hope so, as it's easily solved.

Richard
 
I too had the same problem.

Was fixed by releasing the vang pressure altogether, cutting out the vertical battens and lubricating each component in the system. That was last year and no problem since.
 
Carol.
If you find one...................PLEASE let me know.

We are in SanPedro, there is a Spanish guy, but he is not very reliable, well he was with us, didn’t turn up for about 2 weeks, then only did 1/2 the job........................so, not sure if I could recommend him.

So please, if you find someone, pass, drop me a line.

Good luck.

Joe.
 
Carolwildbird said:
I'm looking for a good rigger between here (Cartagena), Alicante (next stop) and the Balearics- ideally one who can look at my furling system on my in mast furling mainsail (Kemp/selden mast), Any recommendations? "Yacht riggers Mallorca" come up on a search on the selden site.

ta!

carol
Click to expand...
Look for the Legend 45 "Aquatherapy" in Cartegena and see if Glennys is aboard - they have just had some sailwork done by a local company;they were test sailing last week and were really pleased with the work done.
 
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