A few thoughts from an M17 owner who is very glad to have a furler and reefable jibs, pondering what if anything might make it less awesome on an M15... One difference is that on an M17 the forestay is always tensioned by the backstay. So there is zero problem with the stay, and thus the furler extrusion, sagging. On an M15, no backstay, forestay tension dependent on mainsheet, I could imagine situations where luffing the main or for whatever reason losing some tension on the forestay might put enough sag in it that the furler action would be impaired. So maybe that could make a furler hard to work when you wanted it most? That's about the only way I can imagine it jamming, assuming it's installed properly. They're so simple. And it would have to sag a lot to impair furling. For me the main reason for a furler is to control the size of a reefable jib. For that you absolutely want a jib made for reefing on a furler, with the appropriate luff padding to keep good sail shape as you reef it. Otherwise, if the need is just to douse the jib, I agree with others who have expressed satisfaction with a jib downhaul. I set up a jib downhaul on my M17 before I got the furler, it was very handy. But it's all or nothing, all power and pointing ability the jib provides is lost when doused. Whereas even reefed quite a ways down it still works much better than no jib. Meanwhile to your other questions, my furler stays on when I de-rig, it just lies atop the mast from masthead on down (with a bunch of bungee-ball cords to keep it there along with the stays & shrouds etc.). It hangs over the bottom end of the mast (front of boat when mast is down) a few feet, I have a piece of wood that goes into bottom of mast and sticks out to support it level with the part resting on the mast. cheers, John On 1/13/23 07:14, Lawrence Winiarski via montgomery_boats wrote:
I'm seriously preparing to begin to commence to start to get a CDI-FF1 furler for the M15 and I'm looking for comments/criticisms My motivation is I currently have a hank-on-reefable-jib which is actually fine for lake sailing, but in the bigger ocean waves, I'd like to have an easier way to reduce the jib...mainly because the wave action makes me reluctant to spend time away from the tiller
So I don't intend to keep the furler on the boat, but would rather take it off and replace it with the simple hank-on-forestay which I'lluse about 80% of the time and only 20% use the furler when going on bigger water.
So what do you furler guys do when putting the mast back on the trailer? Do you detach it at the mast and slide it up so it doesn't stick out when trailering? What sort of fittings/toggles/turnbuckles do you use?
I'm looking at EP sails and precision sails, but what percentage jib/genoa should I go for? I think stock hank-on was 125%, but with a furler, should I go larger because I can always furl it down?
Any advice appreciated, including questions I don't even know enough to ask.
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