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The Furlex roller reefing on my Bavaria 33 tends to unroll easily most of the way and then sticks before the last couple of feet are unfurled. It can be released by going forward and manually twisting the luff, or a strong gust may release it. Once past the point of resistance it unfurls easily but may wrap the reefing line around the forestay. Can anyone suggest why this may be happening and a possible solution?
Many thanks,
Michael (Vela)Michael,
we had the same problem which in our case was caused by the reefing line wrapping too many times around the drum and becoming coil bound. I simply removed a few furns around the furlex drum and it has sorted the problem.
Hope that you find yours is able to be cured just as easily.
Cheers
Paul.Michael
I suffered a similar problem a few years ago and found that I effectively had a loose riding turn forming on the drum that was caused by poor alignment of the furling line onto the drum and too much slack on the furling line as the genoa was unfurled.
As the genoa is first unfurled and the wind catches it the drum can spin pretty quickly. That causes the furling line to coil looseley on the drum and form the riding turn which then causes the snag up.
The way I sorted my problem was to firstly re thread the line onto the drum having re aligned the leading block so the line centered on the drum spindle. I also only had one full turn of the furling line round the drum when the genoa was fully out so that it minimised the amount of line going onto the drum as it was furled in.
Not sure if that helped but I now also keep some tension on the furling line as we unfurl the genoa and this I think is the biggest benefit. Keeping tension on the line removes any chance of a riding turn occurring and we have not had any problems since.
Although I have gone through a few left handed gloves in the last few years. If your furling line runs to your starboard side I can let you have a few right handed gloves FOC.
Regards
RickHi Michael
I think Rick has the answer but not the right reason. A riding turn when unfurling would give problems when you furl (roll away) the sail again. The problem when you unfurl is the quantity of line on the drum. If it doesn’t wrap tightly then the last few turns rub on the inside of the drum housing and cause sufficient friction to stop rotation.
As Rick suggested, remove any excess turns on the drum when the sail is fully furled and keep it tensioned when unfurling.
Regards
Roger
having re-read my post I realise that I may not have explained myself clearly.
On Hunros, the furlex drum span and wrapped the reefing line a couple of times around the forestay as we unfurled the very last of the Genoa. Upon investigation the reefing line was becoming coil bound in the drum leaving no room for any more line to be pulled in. All I needed to do was take a few turns off the drum to reduce the volume of wrapped line and it cured the problem, Ricks suggestion of fully unfurled with one or two turns left on the drum is about right and the problem should disappear.
However a couple of other reasons pop into my mind,
1) check someone hasn’t replaced the reefing line with a larger size, or,
2) have you added bullseyes on the stanchions for the furling line to run through rather than under the stanchion bases as originally rigged, if so, the forward bullseye may be too high up and allowing the reefing line to wrap predominately at the top of the furling drum causing it to become coil bound.Cheers
Paul.Michael,
I have the same problem occasionally. The cause is that the furling line does not always roll evenly round the drum. When too many coils wrap round the top of the drum it becomes “coil bound”. This either causes the sail to stop unfurling or the furling line wraps round the outside of the drum.
Keeping tension on the line as it unfurls helps prevent this, but I intend to fit an additional roller near the bottom of the rear tube of the pulpit to keep the furling line down, to stop it coiling too much at the top.
Alastair
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