INSTALLING ROLLER FURLING
Thinking of installing roller furling? First, check out Ralph Naranjo's "Retrofitting" column in the Feb. issue of Cruising World, in which he covers the subject in detail. His advice, and mine: Measure twice, cut once (I'd recommend measuring three times).
As for my own experience, I purchased a Hood SL700 Seafurl system (one of the more less expensive systems) from West Marine last spring and performed the installation myself. My mast was down—which, because I was working by myself, made the measuring, configuring and installation of the system easier.
I've been very happy with the Seafurl system, with a couple of caveats: 1) Some sections of the instruction booklet were either a) out of date or b) confusing, necessitating my calling Hood several times to interpret the instructions for my newer system. 2) Some small (but important) parts were missing, which were supplied promptly via FedEx from Hood. I found the people at Hood courteous and helpful, even enlisting a promise from them to update their instruction booklet so that others, purchasing a similar system in the future, wouldn't have to go through the phone call shenanigans I had to go through.
As for the installation itself, here are a couple things I'd recommend:
• To repeat, make absolutely sure you measure your headstay accurately, since this will determine the exact length of your foil extrusion. Cut it too short and you're out of luck.
• To avoid the possibillity of halyard wrap when furling the sail, make sure your uppermost extrusion is cut as close to the top of your masthead as possible. This will reduce the amount of exposed halyard.Too much exposed halyard can result in a wrap when furling the sail, particularly when the wind is howling.
• Make sure you core (remove the core from) at least the first one-third of your furling line. This reduces the diameter of the line so that you can roll more wraps into the furling drum. At first, I thought one-third was excessive and cored only 10 feet, which resulted in the furling line jamming in the lower drum.
• When installing and hauling the sail through the luff grooves, haul and tighten so that it feels snug--not overly tight. If it's too tight, you'll restrict the upper swivel in its operation.
Mine was a real learning process, but I could not be happier with the results. I sail in a fairly windy envrionment (Newport, RI) both on Narragansett Bay and offshore, and with the verstaility of my furling system (I can reduce sail area by up to 30-40 percent and still keep a moderately fair sail shape), I've only had to reef my main once, the furling headsail taking care of most of my powering and depowering needs.