| Author | Message | ||
     Mike Bergmann Unregistered guest Rating: N/A |
Just to add to the discussion: a previous owner added an older style Selden furlex on my short rig 9.1 "Shooting Star". This has the split drum and the included wire forestay mentioned by others. I use this as a racing foil and do well (we won our association champoinship in 2002 racing in a PHRF fleet over a J30 and a J105!) I use the furler for cruising and long deliveries. I avoid a halyard retainer by making sure the upper swivel goes all the way to the top of the extrusion. If the sail is cut too short, add a short pennant at the head. Check the length by running the sail up the extrusion with no pennant, and two-blocking the upper swivel. Measure from the tack ring down to the lower swivel shackle, and use that length for the pennant (maybe reduce by 1/2") I replaced all my halyards with interlocking core spliced halyards in 1997. Each halyard consists of 50 ft. of 3/8" dacron as a tail and 50 ft. of 3/16" (yes, it works!) of spectra or technora as the working part. The interlocking splice is about 5 ft. long and is cut so it ends at the clutches with the halyard up. If you don't want to try this splice yourself you can get it done at Layline or APS. I do mine in about 40 minutes each. I decided that the halyard guide was only needed for protecting the aluminum mast from being cut up by wire halyards. With all-rope halyards, I removed it in 1997, and have had no problems since. With the halyard changes and the guide removed, I got about 5 or 6 poounds out of the masthead, and that almost makes up for the weight of the Selden extrusion. The high-tech parts of the halyards showed a lot of UV damage after 5 years. I was able to replace the high-tech parts only and re-splice them into the original tails. Total replacement cost is about $30 per halyard. An outside vendor won't do this for you. I spray Sailcote on the luffs of all headsails (main too), and the sails literally fall to the deck when we release a halyard. The slippery luff also means that a change in halyard tension shows up immediately. |
