NOVEMBER 2015 http://www.yachtingmonthly.com 3D
id you know that if you go head-to-
wind to furl a yacht’s genoa, you
increase the forces acting against
you? And do you know why most
mainsail furlers work sweetly on starboard tack
but don’t on port? I didn’t, until I bumped into
a bloke called Barrie at a boat show.
Barrie had a bee in his bonnet. Why, he
wanted to know, did Yachting Monthly keep
slagging off in-mast furling mainsails?
I didn’t think we had. We’ve printed letters
from readers who loathe them and responses
from folks who swear by them. I’m not keen,
personally, having wrestled with a hopeless
setup on a charter holiday, but I can see why
other people like them. We always mention
both the benefits and the drawbacks in print.
But that’s the problem, Barrie insisted. Every
time we mention in-mast furlers, we give
readers the impression that there’s something
inherently wrong with them. ‘And there isn’t,’
he said confidently. ‘The problem is that most
sailors don’t know how to use them.’
Furling mainsails divide opinion like anchors,
catamarans, lifejackets and membership of the
EU. There’s just no persuading some folks.
But as Barrie Neilson began scribbling roughdiagrams on the back of an envelope, I had to
admit he had a point. Barrie isn’t just another
cruiers on the other side of the debate. He runs
of one of the biggest charter fleets in the Med,
he’s owned a thousand yachts with in-mast
furling sails and clearly knows his onions.
It turns out that many sailors, like me, have
struggled with in-mast furlers – and decided
that we hate them – because we weren’t shown
a few basic techniques. And many others have
had bad experiences with sails that were made,
or rigged, by people who didn’t understand
how in-mast furling gear is supposed to work.
So I challenged Barrie to demonstrate what he
knows and you can read the result on p14.
I’m now more convinced about in-mast
furling, but I still wouldn’t want it on my own
boat. She’s already underpowered, by modern
standards, with a tad too much weight aloft.
Performance to windward is crucial for my sort
of cruising and I actually enjoy a bit of deck
work, even in a Force 6 with a lumpy sea state.
That said, next time I charter I’ll know how
to use the kit properly and my
wife won’t have to listen to me
swearing at a jammed sail
flogging in the breeze.‘What I didn’t know about furlers’
PHOTO: GRAHAM SNOOK/YMYachting Monthly is
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PHOTO: GRAHAM SNOOKKieran Flatt, editor
[email protected]VIEW FROM THE HELM
Have you had to wrestle with an in-mast furling system when it’s blowing a hooley? Many sailors don’t know how to use them properly – see p