Roller furling or Hank on

[SurryMark]

[quote="gates_cliff"

But sure, if going offshore it is absolutely necessary, in which case you either invest in a sleeved storm jib as you mentioned, or add an inner forestay.

Discussing storm jibs may be getting a bit off of the hank-or-furler thread, but I've been reading some of the Webb Chiles circumnavigation books, and he seems to rely on the furled genny. So far he has not been in winds above the 50s, so he may have a storm jib stowed for monster storms. (He also does a whole lot of travelling with jib or asymmertrical only - no main.)

A fellow at KYC in Blue Hill talked about his trip around, and said they used only the furled jib. Their strongest winds were in the high 40s, with big seas. I've been in winds in the low 50s with 12-16 foot seas (in a Baltic 41); the skipper opted for no jib and a triple-reefed main. I only do coastal sailing; I once planned on rigging for a storm sail, but now it's not on my do-list. Of course there are a whole lot of great sailors on this forum, who carry storm jibs.

[gates_cliff]

Mark,

That's some well founded advice and information. My experience with storm jibs comes from teaching at a sailing school. When the wind piped up over 20 knots we would use storm jibs and reefed main. Of course, this was for beginning students and the idea was to give them an environment where they could learn and not be scared stiff. Nonetheless, I found it was a great alternative. On those boats we did not have roller furling, so that wasn't an option. I think I will probably plan on getting roller furling and for my own peace of mind get a storm jib some time later.

I did help sail a Bavaria 40 down to the BVI once and we had some sustained winds in the 40s, and the windvane registered a gust over 50. We weren't flying a jib at all, just a deeply reefed main. The boat had roller furling jib and main.

As always the collective advice on this forum is amazing.

Cliff

[fenixrises]

Hi all,

My spin block was attached to a standard masthead bail that came with the boat. I had no furling of any kind so no interference with halyards and fuler bearings.

The assym was tacked with a small 3:1 tackle from the end of the bowsprit. (As many of you know my sprit was one foot longer than stock and made from 1&1/2" SS pipe.)

As for storm jibs it is very possible to use a small used jib or genny as such. My current storm jib is such. It is a small genny probably from a 20' or so trailer sailer. On my recent return from Hong Kong, it stood up just fine to sustained 45k winds on a beam reach for nearly 24 hours.

My sail maker friend Kern Ferguson of "Kern's Sails"(made lots of sails for WestSails) assured me that with modern fabrics and stiching just about any small sail will serve as a storm jib, if it is an appropriate size for your boat. My staysail for FeNIX was also a small trailer sailer genny to which I added had added one set of reef points. This I only did a couple of times but was very handy. My storm jib was pretty heavy with a wire luff from some English sail maker. This sail was never used for it's purpose but should have been on one or two occasions.

As to where to buy used head sails I say e-Bay. For FeNIX I got, all used.
Spit Fire Jib(very tiny super storm jib)
Storm Jib
Staysail
Yankee(from a 53' schooner)
Genoa(same as above) these two sails were my primary headsails during my three year trip. Each required only small repairs and were still quite servicable by the time I returned. They were made by Lee of Hong Kong.
A rather bizarre hank on semi assym that hanked on, with a wire luff and was 1.5oz ripstop. Unfortunatly I blew this sail up in a night time squall between the Galapagos and Marquises. Mostly because the fabric was sun rotten. I had a new 1.5 oz tape luff hank on drifter made in NZ as a replacement.
.75 oz. Assym
Storm trysail(never used)
Yep with the mainsail that's a total of 9. Only the main was new. Altogether I do not think I spent much over $1,500 for the headsails from e-Bay, hellofa deal.

There were two occasions when I was able to fly both the assym and drifter while sailing DDW. This I did for a number of days on end and yes the assym was flying while I slept at night. It could not wrap aroung the headstay with the drifter hanked on.

For SunShine I did much the same. New main. The boat came with about a 120% genny. This I blew up in almost the same place in the s.Pacific before with FeNIX. Weird huh!
Of about identical size and weight was another e-Bay genny.
A small yankee about the size of FeNIX's.
My trailer sailer genny cum storm jib.
A brand new "Orange" trysail for a Benneto 36'. This cost all of $250 plus a bit for shipping. So far never used.
The genny fabric is too light to carry the sail hard to windward in over about 12k true. So I often used my small yankee on the headstay and the storm jib as my stay sail. This is a good combination for stronger winds from close to beam reaching.

I would like to have a new hank on heavier weight genny.
A full size yankee.
A true staysail.
A hank on 1.5 oz drifter of the same size as the new genny for DDW sailing in 15k or less winds.
An assym might be too big for me to handle by myself these days, so that's way on the back burner.

Take care,
Fred