It was decided. Our roller furling main would not be the best system for a long passage. When the lines get bunched up inside the mast, we needed to hand feed them while furling, so…it was decided, Dec 2, 2019. The mast needed to be pulled and completely altered for a standard mainsail.
Hi youse twos,
I’ve never had in-mast furling. However, conceptually, it always seemed to me that in-boom furling made more sense (weight is lower when furled. If there’s a problem furling, you can still drop the main, and you can have horizontal battens). For some reason, boom furling is much less popular than in-mast furling. But I’ve never had boom furling either, except for cruising a bit on a buddy’s Corsair F27 which had a roll up main down on the boom (not in the boom, but around the boom). It was great in that there were infinite reef points, and when it was furled, the weight was down on the boom, and the battens went in the right direction. However, I have a conventional halyard raised main sail now on our Catalina 320. I have been in the process of re-rigging the reef line, adding a block on the tack and clew reef points to reduce friction in the single line reefing system. I like it.
Be liberal with reef points. Mother nature is easier to take with sufficient reefing! Roger
Great new ideas here, thanks! We now have a conventional main with 4 reefing points. Agreed, we will need them all!
We went over to Santa Cruz Isl recently and we were getting overpowered as we got into Windy Lane. We reefed and not only was the boat more comfortable, but we then hit our top speed of the trip, 7.5 kts with one reef (LWL is only 28′ so we were well over hull speed). We had pretty much the same thing coming back. The point is, when you’re going upwind or close reaching, you’re not sacrificing speed by reefing, but you’re reducing loads, and you’re gaining comfort, control, and safety.
Roger
Roger, good point. We are happy with the change we made in our main. The furling main just wasnt to be trusted, always needed our assistance. Our new conventional main is awesome and we point better now, yay. We decided on 3 reef points, since we have a small staysail we can use if needed.
Oops sorry, I didnt see your reply. We are headed to the islands in a few weeks, good to know of the windy spot. Great news on your boat speed.