Furling Yankee

[Peter Vaughan]

My problem is the reverse of some of the other's posted. This year I have had difficulty in getting my Yankee to "pull out and fly" smoothly. It starts to unwind , them jams and the furling line comes off the drum and the mechanism jams. This has happened several times this year. I do keep tension on the furling line so I don,t think this is the problem. What appears to be the problem is that the furling line bunches at the top of the drum and does not spread evenly across the drum as we are unfulrling the yankee. Otherwise we are delighted with Tern and have many good sails on the Dart and Start Bay.

If anyone can help that would be great.
Peter Vaughan

[Dennis]

Hello Peter

I have not encountered this problem with my CapeCutter although, others have.

You say that the furling line does not wind evenly across the drum but bunches at the top. Try bending the guide arm for the furling line down so that the eye is in line with the centre of the drum. This should help the line wind on more evenly.

If you have the furler mounted directly to the end of the bowsprit, the angle of the furling line can cause the guide arm to bend up slightly. You could try raising the furler about 100-150 mm above the bowsprit using a lashing or shackles etc. and ignoring the bullet eye intended for the furling line near the end of the bowsprit. My furler is never close bowsprit because I have a double block system to allow the furler to be hauled in for sail changing. ( See photos in " Mary Ann Modifications" album.) This may be why I have never had this problem!

Check out Seasickwhales' modification shown in one of his albums. Also "Findus" had a similar modification, for the same problem which was covered in the old Yahoo Groups forum, including photographs.

Hope this helps

Dennis

CC19 #100 Mary Ann

[oak]

Peter,
I have found that my genoa/yankee furler works better when the line does not go through the bullseye.But I have no doubt that dozens of others work better in the opposite way.I raised my staysail furler a la Black Sheep so that the drum intake is in line with the bullseye on the coachrof,perfect.I also put in a 6ins strop at the hounds so that the sail is quite parallel to the forestay.

Do you slacken off the halyards when putting the boat to bed.I have found that if the luff is too slack the sail does not want to furl or unfurl.Also that would make an even bigger angle of line attack As you seem to have an intermittent problem it may be something quite simple.

depending on the size you have on the boat
others have jacked up the size of the winding line see Yahoo forum for details
let us all know how you get on because jamming furlers always seem generate interst.
Jack
Merlin

[Chris Wicks]

Hi Peter,
To solve the annoyance and danger of the jammed furler, I noticed that the furling line having ridden to the top of the drum then jammed between the furler guide and the inside top edge of the drum. I found an odd bit of plastic that fitted over the top of the guide and then I taped it in place with some sticky tape. That was 2 seasons ago and it has never jammed since.

So if by some means you can close the 2-3mm gap to 0.5 mm it will not jam. The line will then continue to feed correctly onto the reel even if the lead is not quite straight. All my gear is as it came from HM save for the little plastic spacer.

Cheers

Chris

Kaliope

[seasickwhale]

Hi Peter,

in an earlier post Dennis of CC19 #100 Mary Ann directed you to my post and pictures - see http://www.capecutter19.org/forum/album.php?albumid=17

I had really bad problems with the furling line building up at the top, then coming off the drum and jamming around the guide - of course generally in a blow when least needed.

Ever since I bent a bit of stainless and stuck it over the guide to close the gap between the guide and the drum there has not been a single jam. Simple but unbeatably efficient.

[Peter Vaughan]

Hello to all who kindly replied to my querry re problem with furling the Yankee on Tern. You have given me plenty of ideas on how to "mind the gap" and I will try some of the simpler ones first. I can then introduce a more permament solution once I have Tern out of the water for the winter.

Best regards to all.

Peter