I guess this would make life a lot easier for a solo sailer.Not too sure about
sail trim though.

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Bananabender said..
I guess this would make life a lot easier for a solo sailer.Not too sure about
sail trim though.

At least it's not inside the mast.
Can't have horizontal battens so yes not good sail shape.

Lots of extra weight and windage aloft (which you cant get rid of in a storm) with it's attendant pendulum effect including the mast steps which are probably a necessity to service it.

As someone who is currently fixing their headsail furler it's a big NO thank you!

They can be a pain in the butt if people fail to secure them correctly at their moorings. I have only had to rescue one that unfurled in a Westerly gale. The owner had secured the reefing line with a cam cleat which just let go. When I eventually got it re furled I took the line to a real cleat to secure. The leech of the sail was totally destroyed!
That head sail furled in the photo above would not last here either left like that. The sail needs to be fully furled with 3 or 4 turns of the sheet frapped around the headsail and both the sheets and the furling lines taken and secured to real cleats.
Only two yachts in my local mooring field have furling mainsails. The other one is a 54 foot ketch with the sails furling controlled by hydraulics.

My mum had one of these mains on her cat back in the 80s. It was awful, truly terrible. It put a lot of extra compression load aft of the mast so you couldn't do it up tight and it sagged when going to windward. Also the main does a nice job of supporting the mast when going to windward. After a couple of years my mum was going to windward and the mast fell down - maybe due to the lack of support, the bad engineering, or the extra compression. It was good in the end as they put a normal mast with a normal main on, installed stern extensions, and put folding props on too - totally transformed the boat into a nice sailer from a total pig - don't do it!

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Ramona said..
They can be a pain in the butt if people fail to secure them correctly at their moorings. I have only had to rescue one that unfurled in a Westerly gale. The owner had secured the reefing line with a cam cleat which just let go. When I eventually got it re furled I took the line to a real cleat to secure. The leech of the sail was totally destroyed!
That head sail furled in the photo above would not last here either left like that. The sail needs to be fully furled with 3 or 4 turns of the sheet frapped around the headsail and both the sheets and the furling lines taken and secured to real cleats.
Only two yachts in my local mooring field have furling mainsails. The other one is a 54 foot ketch with the sails furling controlled by hydraulics.

And it also only takes a few seconds to chuck a sail tie or a velcro strap (or both) around the jib as another backup, as well as looping the furling line around a backup horn cleat.

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Bananabender said..
I guess this would make life a lot easier for a solo sailer.Not too sure about
sail trim though.

I know that boat and the guy who put the Main sail furler On, I was extremely jealous when we got hit by a gale and he instantly furled half his sail away while I hung on for grim death trying to get Back in . control