Head Sail Furler Details

The Forestay
Over the years, yachts-men have told about forestays breaking within a short time of having furling gear fitted. Our analysis on this is that there is so much combined weight in the forestay, sail and spar that, when sailing, it creates a big bending moment where the forestay wire exits at the top of the furling spar. As a result of the continuous bending, the forestay wire finally breaks at that point

To overcome this problem we supply, with Reef-Rite, a forestay swage for the top approximately 3 times longer than a normal swage. this brings the actual start of the forestay wire well down into the spar. The bending moment now occurs on the swage, which is much stronger and capable of withstanding the bend. We believe this may extend forestay life by as much as threefold under roller furling conditions.

Secondly because the furling gear is often fitted on older boats, the age and condition of the rigging is unknown. When the Reef-Rite furling system is installed, then headstay is always replaced with a new one as part of the base price.

The Furling Spar
The furling spa is the aluminium extrusion that extends from the drum at the bottom of the forestay to the top of the forestay. The spar must have sufficient torsional stiffness. In laymen's terms, it should not twist. The spar is fixed at the bottom by a reef line or in the case of a Reef-Rite furler, by a pawl. Many of the problems associated with roller furlers can be attributed to the design of the spar. Perhaps the worst situation is having the bolt rope of the sail luff pull out of the luff groove and jam part way up. It is then very difficult to get the sail up or down. All Reef-Rite systems have twin oversize luff grooves designed to overcome this problem. An additional advantage of oversized grooves is easier sail hoisting.

Another problem associated with spars is the joints. Most spars are shipped in 2m lengths. On a 9m boat this can mean six joints or more. Typically, at each joint there is some kind of aluminium sleeve inside the spar, extending above and below the joint. The aluminium sleeves are usually fastened to the spar with set screws. The main problem with the joints is that, if the set screws work their way out or it there is any play in the joint because of a loose fitting sleeve, the two sections of spar will work back and forth damaging the sail.

With the Reef-Rite systems, the spar is assembled in 4m sections, thereby halving the number of joints. The spar joiners or sleeves are machined squares. They fit very snugly in the spar and accurately align adjoining sections.

The Halyard Car
There are two ways to design the halyard car. The first is with open type bearings that can be washed out after all the dirt (at marinas) or salt gets in. The second is with fully protected bearings and seals. Reef-Rite elected to go with the fully sealed bearings for long term maintenance free operation. Our halyard car is constructed of stainless steel with acetal (a very sturdy plastic) spar guides.

Click here to read on....