As a follow up and slightly better explanation....
The system is a Schaffer free flying system (
http://www.furling.com/freeflying.html) that is designed to furl the sail around a wire siezed inside the luff of the sail. After talking to Schaffer's tech department their feeling is that the lay of the wire should match the way that the drum spins so that as you pull the furrling line to roll in the sail the wire is tightened in it's lay.
Normally I wouldn't use this system since I feel it is significantly less sound than a design that uses a foil to turn the sail around, but like many tools this one has it's place. In this application the sail is being used to provide a short handed option to a racing sailboats normal tuff-luf system. So there will be always be the permanent headstay attached. Keeping the structual requirements of this sytem as low as possible.