Furling Main
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KootsChewt
- Chief Steward
- Posts: 61
- Joined: Thu Oct 13, 2016 4:16 pm
- Sailboat: MacGregor 26M
- Location: Kootenay Lake, Nelson, BC, Canada [2008 26M, 20hp Merc 4-str, bought Sep '16, Mountain Bluebird]
- Contact:
Re: Furling Main
We've decided to repair our furling main (boom roller) system (see here viewtopic.php?f=9&t=26362) and give it another go this year. One thing I wasn't please with last year was the sail shape when it was reefed. After doing some reading on more expensive furling main systems, it seems that many (most?) of them implement a tapered mandrel (the tube the sail rolls onto). So, I thought I'd ask the collective what they thought of that idea! Hopefully I can add some sort of taper (maybe water pipe insulation foam?) in a temporary fashion to try it out - the goal is to remove some of the belly from the sail to get it flatter when roller-reefed.... kind of defeats the purpose to reef down the sail and turn it into a bag - same amount of heel, but less go!
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KootsChewt
- Chief Steward
- Posts: 61
- Joined: Thu Oct 13, 2016 4:16 pm
- Sailboat: MacGregor 26M
- Location: Kootenay Lake, Nelson, BC, Canada [2008 26M, 20hp Merc 4-str, bought Sep '16, Mountain Bluebird]
- Contact:
Re: Furling Main
I've been looking at my mandrel (the roller part), and I noticed a bushing on the mast end of it as well. Looking back at JimmyT's photos of his set-up on page 1, it looks to me like I could get a bracket fab'd up like his and add that to my system. All of the more expensive systems seem to use a bracket at that end, not a floppy cable attached to a bail that swivels... so I'm going to enlist a local mechanical designer buddy and see what we can come up with!