I have a CD31 and am getting on in age and want reduce my sailing muscle work. Does anyone have experience with in mast or behind the mast mainsail furlers, or in the boom furlers?I would appreciate any info on the subject.Also I am considering removing the staysail and converting the yankee to a 135% genoa.Any thoughts? Regards to all.
Camanoe@aol.com
mainsail furling
Moderator: Jim Walsh
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len
Re: mainsail furling
william
i also sail the wonderful CD31 - don't know anything about in mast or in boom mainsail furling - re staysail: i think i would convert it to a roller furler system, which can be done retaining the boom, before i would eliminate it
len
md.frel@nwh.org
i also sail the wonderful CD31 - don't know anything about in mast or in boom mainsail furling - re staysail: i think i would convert it to a roller furler system, which can be done retaining the boom, before i would eliminate it
len
md.frel@nwh.org
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Tom
Re: mainsail furling
I agree with len. By all means go to a roller furling 135% genoa, but I wouldn't remove the staysail. It's a great heavy weather sail and requires very little muscle because of its small size. I use it as much or more than the genoa. If you're trying to save muscle, tacking a big 135% genoa is much more work than that 70 square foot self tending staysail is ever going to be.
I have no personal experience with mainsail furling systems but I've seen a few on other boats and none of them seemed to work right. Why not just take a couple of reefs in the main before you leave if the weather looks doubtful? Actually if you just want to save muscle, sailing with a double reefed main and staysail you'd never have to fuss with the sails at all in anything less than 50 knots of wind until you got where you're going and put them away. In light winds roll out your 135 genoa also and you'd have the ideal lazy man's rig and you'd never have to leave the cockpit or change a sail until you got there. You wouldn't be the fastest boat on the block, but if you're starting to worry about muscle energy expended you have to give up beating everybody to windward anyway. Putting a traditional non-roller furling, non self-tending genoa on is going to increase the muscle power needed certainly not reduce it. And it virtually guarantees that you will have to go up on a dancing foredeck to smother it when the wind kicks up. Talk about needing muscle power and balance! If you're you're not thinking roller furling you'd be a lot better off with your smaller yankee. JMHO
Tom
CD 31 # 15
TomCambria@mindspring.com
I have no personal experience with mainsail furling systems but I've seen a few on other boats and none of them seemed to work right. Why not just take a couple of reefs in the main before you leave if the weather looks doubtful? Actually if you just want to save muscle, sailing with a double reefed main and staysail you'd never have to fuss with the sails at all in anything less than 50 knots of wind until you got where you're going and put them away. In light winds roll out your 135 genoa also and you'd have the ideal lazy man's rig and you'd never have to leave the cockpit or change a sail until you got there. You wouldn't be the fastest boat on the block, but if you're starting to worry about muscle energy expended you have to give up beating everybody to windward anyway. Putting a traditional non-roller furling, non self-tending genoa on is going to increase the muscle power needed certainly not reduce it. And it virtually guarantees that you will have to go up on a dancing foredeck to smother it when the wind kicks up. Talk about needing muscle power and balance! If you're you're not thinking roller furling you'd be a lot better off with your smaller yankee. JMHO
Tom
CD 31 # 15
William Munger wrote: I have a CD31 and am getting on in age and want reduce my sailing muscle work. Does anyone have experience with in mast or behind the mast mainsail furlers, or in the boom furlers?I would appreciate any info on the subject.Also I am considering removing the staysail and converting the yankee to a 135% genoa.Any thoughts? Regards to all.
TomCambria@mindspring.com
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John R.
Re: mainsail furling
We have Hyde Streamstay roller furling on our 30. It is an external furling unit with a drum at the base (goose neck area)and a swivel at the masthead and a slotted aluminum rod in between. The unit never has had any problems but the original rigging of the furl/ unfurl line leads were not layed out properly and have caused a little too much resistance. The lines were rigged to be guided through to swivel bulls eyes mounted on the mast sides just below the boom and then run downward to stand up turning blocks on the deck and then lead aft. The problem is the bulls eyes, they create too much friction causing excessive resistance. The better way to run the leads is off the boom straight down to the deck blocks (45 degree angle) and not go to the mast and make a sharp 90 degree turn downward. Other than that small rigging problem it works great. I will need to do some experimenting with hardware and angles of the line leads to get it right.William Munger wrote: I have a CD31 and am getting on in age and want reduce my sailing muscle work. Does anyone have experience with in mast or behind the mast mainsail furlers, or in the boom furlers?I would appreciate any info on the subject.Also I am considering removing the staysail and converting the yankee to a 135% genoa.Any thoughts? Regards to all.
The main has to be recut for the Hyde system and a little performance is lost, but not that much. But, this is a cruising boat, not a performance cruiser. The rigging problem has nothing to do with the Hyde system, it is a seperate matter and not related to the Hyde at all. When using just pull the green line to unfurl and pull the red line to furl. Doesn't get any easier than that. Stay away from internal mast furlers, they are notorious for jamming and can be very difficult to correct. Some boom internal furlers are performing very well these days, those designs have improved dramatically over the last few years.
The staysail/genoa issue is a very controversial one. I suggest you read the posts in the archives to get a good cross section of opinion.