free luff furling

[jamesorcas]

Hello,
I am considering free luff roller furling. Does anyone have experience with how this would work with a 40 - 60 foot luff? I am wondering what sort of tension would be neccessary to minimize the sail from being pushed out of shape to leeward.

[Brian Duff]

the amount of luff sag tolerable is related to design type and conditions sailed in.

what kind of boat ?

the amount of tension needed will vary on the same criteria.

there is no reason that luff tension cannot be had no mater what the design or conditions, with enough power on the halyard and stiffness in the rig

oh, to answer your question, on the two boats I have sailed with foil-less furlers on the headsails, both worked great. One was a Wykeham-Martin style on a 40' gaff cutter with a 44' luff. tension was achived by a 2:1 halyard of 1/2" doublebraid polyester line set up with the runners loose and mainsail eased.

the next boat has a profurl foiless furler, and dyneema 2:1 halyard to 4:1 tackle at deck, with a luff of 46' again a gaff rig on a 50' schooner.

both work fine for their applications.