MacGregorSailors.com

so, there I was powering along solo at around 12 knots, ballast out, into about a Force 4 off the east coast of Sai Kung, when I noticed that the sunbrella cover on the 150 Genny was flapping about a bit, so I slowed right down and went forward to sort it out. The forestay and the sail itself appeared to be fine, just the cover a bit flappy, so I decided to unzip it and carry on motoring without it. Who knows, I might decide to actually sail a bit later on when I wasn't heading directly into the wind.....

Anyhow, of course, the is not going to have any of this "leave the wheel unattended" nonsense, and as soon as I'm up on the foredeck the first puff of wind causes the bow to veer off onto what I suppose was a broadish reach, at which point the now-unsheathed 150 Genny decides it's time to unfurl itself. Quite how, I don't know, as the line was cleated off, but anyhow, more of that in a moment. We now have me on the foredeck with a big Genoa flapping uncontrollably in a Force 4, with the boat beam on to some 5ft+ waves and no ballast in, no boards down, and no obvious way of getting the sail either sheeted or rolled back in. Mild concern at this point..... (I was of course wearing a lifejacket, and thought I might actually need it... )

As I have commented before, the inside of the furler drum on the Mac was designed solely with the intention of removing fingers, and although I could see that the line was still fully out (it should have been wound right up as the sail unfurled), there was no quick way of getting the mechanism to work as intended, especially as I was now lurching about at 30 degrees or more. If I had somehow managed to furl it back in by hand, it would only have run out again the moment I let go, so that wasn't really an option, and the sail was flogging itself to death. What to do? I seriously considered sending out a PAN PAN call to the Coastguard (Hong Kong Marine Department) but didn't.

1. I got back and turned the nose back into the wind to calm everything down

2. Opened the ballast valve PDQ, taking care to maintain (1) while it filled, dropped the rudders and

3. Ferry-glided the boat horizontally for about 400 yards - it took forever - until I was in the lee of a cliff, killed the engine and went forward again

4. I managed to get the sheets attached to the Genoa, and tied the Starboard side off pretty tight to stop the sail flogging itself to death. Bad move. The boat took this as an invitation to start sailing, and the shore beneath the abovementioned cliff started rapidly coming into view. Plan B.

5. Turned downwind, let the sheet right out so that the sail was in two minds which side of the mast it wanted to set on (mini-gybes, but nothing half as scary as the previous scenario)

6. At this point I decided to re-furl the sail by hand, which took almost 10 minutes against the pressure of the wind, and I wrapped the sheets around the sail to stop it unfurling again. I then swallowed hard and put my fingers into the Jaws of Death - i.e. the furler drum - to wind the furling line back on, which involved passing the entire 20+ feet of line around and around the drum. I eventually got there, by which time I had moved just over 2 nautical miles downwind of my original position. {ON EDIT} as pointed out below, this is utter nonsense, as the line needed to be fully out once the sail was furled back on. Upon reflection, what I in fact did was to lift up the drum and re-seat it to make sure that it was fully engaged on whatever internal mechanism it sits on, such that the furler itself could no longer rotate freely without involving the line on the drum. All I know is that I was more than half expecting to lose a pinky or two...

Having been really quite worried, I was elated, but over the next few hours I gave some seriosu thought to how nasty this could have been - especially if it had happened at night or in a stronger wind. I still don't know what it was that allowed the sail to unfurl in spite of the drum being tied off, and when I subsequently unfurled the sail and enjoyed some actual sailing later in the day, everything worked just like it says in the book.

My point is this; because the furler is attached to the forestay and not a halyard, there appears to be no way of dropping the Genoa without dropping the mast (which was clearly not an option here). That is a very, very powerful sail in a Force 4, and its virtually impossible to hang on to it by hand. If it goes out and decides to stay out, you have a potentially serious problem on your hands, and although I am no hero, I am really really pleased that I was able to figure out a way to react to this situation. It could have been very different.

Has anyone else experienced this, or worried about what would happen if the furler jammed? I love my , and am actually coming to believe that she is a far better sailing boat than she is under power, but what with the disaster waiting to happen if the daggerboard drops when powering at speed, this second risk item seems to indicate a less-than-well-thought-out design, from a safety perspective at least.

In closing, the antifouling Neville applied in Dubai didn't work at all in Hong Kong and after 4 months on the mooring Morwenna was carrying an absolute forest of marine worms on the hull, limiting speed to about 12 knots and messing directional stability about. I still think the Honda BF50 is a truly awful motor, but after being serviced, scrubbed down and re-antifouled she got back up to 16 knots SOG on the way home, which isn't bad (though it hammers the fuel consumption). However, take those mittens off the wheel for even half a nanosecond, and who knows which way the next puff of wind or wave will take you....

magnetic wrote: 6. At this point I decided to re-furl the sail by hand, which took almost 10 minutes against the pressure of the wind, and I wrapped the sheets around the sail to stop it unfurling again. I then swallowed hard and put my fingers into the Jaws of Death - i.e. the furler drum - to wind the furling line back on, which involved passing the entire 20+ feet of line around and around the drum. I eventually got there, by which time I had moved just over 2 nautical miles downwind of my original position

Magnetic,

Sorry to hear about your troubles. But it sounds to me like you kept yourself calm/cool and took care of the problem.

As to the quote above...I am confused by your statement that your had to wind the furling line back on after you had furled the sail by hand. I thought once the sail was furled you just needed to attach the furling line through the drum opening and out the top hole and tie a stopper knot to keep it from pulling through. Then once you un-furl the sail it will wrap the furling line on the drum allowing you to pull the furling line from the cockpit to re-furl the sail.

On my CDI that is the way to replace the furling line. While furled just cut that knot and pull out the old furling line...insert the new line through that hole and retie the stopper knot...good to go.

As for "dropping" the fore-sail on the CDI furler. I have a "halyard" that is "inside" the luff extrusion. But there is a little bit sticking out the bottom that is secured to the drum. I believe...I have never actually done this...that I could cut this line and then pull down my Genoa by hand and stuff down the front hatch as I go. This is my emergency plan if I can't get the d@mn thing to furl and it is flogging away.

Cheers,
Jim
Sailing on König

my bad - now amended

the foredeck is an extremely lonely and uncomfortable place to be when things aren't going right, dontcha find....

This sounds like a complete nightmare ! I am glad you kept your cool and manged to sort things out. Jim's comment makes sense. I do wonder if it would be better to use a snap shackle or carbine hook to connect the genoa halyard onto the furling drum rather than tying it on with a knot for just such an emergency situation. One could perhaps have a messenger line tied up ready to connect onto the shackle so you can raise the sail easily once things are sorted.
Water ballast tank and single handed sailing ... Has anybody come up with a mod to control the valve from the cockpit ? I take it the valve is located in the cabin sole just like in my 26S ?

the inlet gate is on the stern transom, and my has a mod to vent the filler into the anchor locker, meaning that I don't need to go into the cabin to close the valve

magnetic wrote:the inlet gate is on the stern transom, and my has a mod to vent the filler into the anchor locker, meaning that I don't need to go into the cabin to close the valve

Got any pictures of that mod?

Glad you could get everything squared away safely.
I quickly found out the M can be a handful. More so then my MUCH heavier 33 at times. One time at idle speeds in gentle 3 foot swells convinced me never to use the boat unballasted unless your in millpond conditions. While it may not go over the motion is so extreme its hard to do anythung, so a simple issue normally, could become an extreme sport while trying not to get flung off the boat.
As for fail dangerouly, well, think of releasing the steering wheel of an automobile to look for toll coins under the seat.
No one would, of course, but we dont call autos fail dangerous. I have never let the wheel go while under power. I even have a wheel break i made for the boat, and even with that ingaged i would not trust the boat to mind herself under power. I come down to idle and take it out of gear. She does do fine under sail and i have had a whole lunch while the boat sailed herself.

Rgarding the daggerboard, the manual does say to make sure its tied off well. Plus my boat has a big sticker inside, saying if operating without ballast, remove all sails and operate the boat in calm water. Yet i myself drove the boat while the sails were secured by just a few sail ties, out into three foot swells, seven miles offshore, with no ballast, and THEN went up on the cabin ( another no no according to the manual) to try to secure the mast, that was slamming and banging as the boat rolled violently. I eventually filled the tank, the boat settled down, i secured the mast from rotating, and carried on with full ballast tank.

In many ways i think these particular boats resemble airplanes. There are some things on planes that either you cant do, ever, or things that must be done, or else there could be a catastrophy. I once knew a guy who flew ultralight aircraft. They had pins, cables, and other gear that COULD NOT come loose else the thing would crash. This guy was a lifelong pilot of all manner of aitcraft, but he eventually did crash that plane due to misjudging the winds on landing. He never flew that type of aircraft again.

I still find it ironic that this boat is marketed as a beginners boat, although Roger has obviously put alot of throught into the boat.
In my eyes a much better beginnrrs boat would be a Skipper 20. that is more failsafe, in that it cant flip no matter what you do or forget to do, cant motor fast enough to get you in trouble, no fins to forget to raise or lower, and you could probably hit the jetty pretty hard without damaging it. Plus in serious weather it would have my bet hands down. Even anything out of the compaq line would be safer and better to actually learn to sail from scratch on.
ive been sailing since i was ten, and it is taking me some time to get used to the unique handeling issues with this boat.

Ixneigh

I have no problem riding out on my 4ft bowsprit
http://s844.photobucket.com/albums/ab1/ ... 010093.mp4

Also the same reason I changed to the Harken 00 Furler's you can run the genny & jib halyards back to the cockpit
http://i844.photobucket.com/albums/ab1/ ... 4942-4.jpg
allowing you to go up through the front hatch and lower the sail into the v-berth the harken also has a locking slot that you can put a pin into to prevent them from unfurling , I always double cleat off my furlers to prevent them from becoming uncleated accidently in rough waters . A broken furling line will let the sail unfurl by itself but a bungy cord around the furler will prevent that
Glad to hear everything worked out OK though

J

Hi all, and many thanks for the comments

1. The valve mod is fairly well documented; I don't have any photos myself, but searching the site should throw something up. Basically, run a lenght of flexible plastic pipe from the vent up to a new aperture in the anchor locker (well above the waterline). Thereafter effectively handsfree.

2. Without keeping the motor engaged and driving the boat forwards, there is absolutely no way she will keep her bow into the wind. Putting a brake on the wheel - and I have tried bungees in the past - is fine insofar as it goes, which is wherever the boat decides it wants to go. Keeping the outboard and for that matter the rudders pointing e.g. dead ahead is fine until a wave lifts the bow and "dead ahead" becomes a radically different heading. Without constant correction - think Cop movies from the 1960's, where drivers seem to be forever moving the steering wheel - the boat has limited directional stability under power. Under sail I have, however, frequently been able to find a "groove", and as long as the wind remains consistent, she really will sail herself

3. Highlander, your clip-on "Big Boy" is a testament not only to your engineering skills and dedication, but borderline insanity Although none of us probably has a "stock" boat, your own perversions are the stuff of legend, and I am waiting only for your sea-trials of a semi-submersible complete with torpedos and a conning tower. And what is that fender doing out??? Honestly, kids these days!!

Aren't these boats fun. Well, as long as the furler behaves itself, at least ....

Magnetic;
Your dilema has served to re-inforce and substantiate my decision to go with the Shaefer CF700 Snapfurler. I have had it on a few years now and the open drum feature is no threat to the fingers plus this furler incorporates the use of the jib halyard to raise and lower the sail like a hank-on, so in your case it would have only been a couple minutes to drop that headsail and stuff it down the forehatch. The Snapfurler does cost a bit more but in the end you get what you pay for. I have no regrets especially after some of the episodes I read about and some of the situations I see first hand.

Highlander wrote:I have no problem riding out on my 4ft bowsprit
http://s844.photobucket.com/albums/ab1/ ... 010093.mp4

Uh, how do you trailer that?

So the exact same thing happened to me while I was at anchor--the genny furling line somehow had unwound and wouldn't furl the last three feet or so of the jib. I went forward to straighten it out and made the mistake of uncleating the furling line, so immediately the entire genny unfurls, fills, and the boat takes off ahead of the anchor in about 20 knot winds. (wish I could get it to sail that well on purpose ). I should have loosed the genny lines completely to keep the sail from powering up automatically before I went

Difference is I had the ballast full when I went forward, and so while this was annoying, it was merely annoying rather than unsafe. I was all boards up and motor up though so there was zero control other than the anchor being down, which the boat was eagerly trying to unset. Fortunately the anchor wasn't having any of that as I was over anchored and had sent a kellet down the line due to strong current and strong winds.

I wound up manually furling the genoa which took about ten minutes (by hand cranking the roller) and working out the furling line (now conscious to keep a strong tension on it).

But the way to keep this from being unsafe is simple: Irrespective, no matter what, I flood the ballast before I go topside. No ballast, no topside, period. I weight 240 lbs. (6'5", not overweight) so grabbing a fore-stay and swinging out topside without ballast I could easily knock down the boat. Topside is off limits without ballast on my boat.

I have a procedure we go through to "switch" from motoring to sailing, and we always go through it when we change propulsion even if it's only for a few minutes. It's boards down, ballast in, reverse or motoring.

Matt

magnetic,
Great to hear that the bad story had a happy ending! You did a good job describing it too...I could just about see your facial expressions...

c130king wrote:As for "dropping" the fore-sail on the CDI furler. I have a "halyard" that is "inside" the luff extrusion. But there is a little bit sticking out the bottom that is secured to the drum. I believe...I have never actually done this...that I could cut this line and then pull down my Genoa by hand and stuff down the front hatch as I go. This is my emergency plan if I can't get the d@mn thing to furl and it is flogging away.

I have a CDI furler as well and have removed the sail several times now on the hard, and assuming yours is the same, then Jim is right...the furler luff has three channels in it - the center channel is where your forestay is, one side has the genoa bolt rope strung into it, and the halyard runs from the top of the genoa through the black "cap" that is on the top of the luff (there is just a channel inside, no pulleys or anything) and back out, down into the channel on the other side of the luff (has a small metal clamp on the rope to keep it in the luff channel), all the way to the bottom and is tied off on the drum.

To lower the genoa, you untie the rope that is the end of your halyard down at the drum, pull the genoa down (which will pull the halyard up), and she'll come off. Note, the little metal clamp on the halyard line probably won't make it through the black cap at the top, so you probably can't take the genoa off completely without untying the halyard, but you should be able to douse the genoa completely in an emergency situation. (Please correct me if I'm wrong on that.)

Matt,

What type kellet do you use on what type of anchor?

How's that for hijacking a thread?

Terry,
I have been looking at the Shaefer 500 and 700 and they require a #5 luff tape and I get my sails thru Hansen with a #6 luff tape that won't work on the Shaefer. That means I need to resew a new #5 luff tape on my working jib and order a new 150 Genoa from a sailmaker that costs much higher than Hansen.
I belive the Shaefer with the round diamiter would furl the headsail to a more uniform roll compared to the CDI.(but more windage).
Is this correct? I also would like to change headsails during low summer winds to a 150 Genoa and haveing a halyard to do that with the Shaefer and being able to clean the sail would be probably the extra expence one has to spend for this.
I am thinking about it and Judies comments on useing the 500 makes sense.
Can you tell use in a few words why the Shaefer out performs the CDI in ease of handleing,changeing sails, furling and leaving it all connected while Trailer Sailing.
Dave

Terry wrote:Magnetic;
Your dilema has served to re-inforce and substantiate my decision to go with the Shaefer CF700 Snapfurler. I have had it on a few years now and the open drum feature is no threat to the fingers plus this furler incorporates the use of the jib halyard to raise and lower the sail like a hank-on, so in your case it would have only been a couple minutes to drop that headsail and stuff it down the forehatch. The Snapfurler does cost a bit more but in the end you get what you pay for. I have no regrets especially after some of the episodes I read about and some of the situations I see first hand.