Forestay wire and furling advice needed

[romandesign]

Romadesign; by the looks of your rig in the photo, you have 2 choices.
1) add a second tang above the forestay tang (such as many of us have done to accommodate a spinnaker halyard).
2) attach a short (12") pony line between your existing tang and the turning block. This might get the halyard far enough forward and away from the furling extrusion that it does not foul when rotating the headsail on the furler.

Darry

Can you please elaborate on the pony line? I'm not sure I understand how it would work, the geometry is not clear to me.

Similar to a "tack line". Sometimes referred to as a "tack pennant". http://www.holiday23.co.za/Fine%20tunin ... Furler.htm

12 inch long metal wire (same size wire as the forestay) with loops on both ends. One loop goes around your mast tang (same place as your forestay roller furling is attached) the other end second loop goes around your turning block of your "spare" halyard.

This 12 inches gets it away from the top of the roller furling extrusion, so it won't foul when rotating the Furler.
could kill

Thanks, that makes sense.

[Judy B]

So.... I'm wondering what caused the furler to bind in the first place? Binding doesn't happen when it's properly installed. There's a reason it was binding. Check that the furling line is entering the drum at the recommended angle. Otherwise, the furler will ride up the foil when you pull on the furling line -- and conceivably jam.

Additionally, it's not clear to me that the jamming broke the wire strands at the top of the furler, or that they caused it to jam. I think you've got TWO different problems to fix.

The CDI manual recommends using a toggle at the top of the forestay, to prevent forestay failure from this cause.

I'll hazard a guess as to what broke the wire strand : You'll note in your picture that the wire strands broke right where it enters the bottom of the nicopress crimp. This suggests to me that the most likely cause of failure was "work hardening" (bending until the wire becomes brittle) where the flexible wire entered the inflexible crimp.



The proven way to prevent this from happening is to use a forestay with a T-toggle fitted at the top of the wire, where the forestay attaches to the mast fitting. the toggle acts as a "universal joint", preventing the forestay from being bent. If you have a nicopress loop at the top of your forestay rather than a t-toggle, you can add a "fork and eye" riggers toggle between the forestay and the mast fittings.

I recommend that you double check the furler manual to make sure the furler is installed in accordance with ALL the instructions. Here's a link to the manual online:
http://www.sailcdi.com/products/flexibl ... load&fid=2

All stays and shrouds should be inspected annually at the swages for mechanical damage and for corrsion, with a magnifying glass. If you find a cracked strand, replace the forestay immediately. Riggers recommend replacing the standing rigging every 7-10 years due to hidden corrosion.

Helpful hints for handling a mal-functioning furler when your out sailing:
If you ever find yourself in a situation where you can't furl the headsail using the furler, there are backup methods. If there's not much wind, you can go up on the foredeck and manually wrap the sail around the furler. If there's a lot of wind, you can take the sheets off and motor in circles.



Fair winds,
Judy B

[romandesign]

If there's a lot of wind, you can take the sheets off and motor in circles.

Fair winds,
Judy B

That's brilliant! I wish I had thought of that. I could not really manage to do it by hand in that wind, so it was a haphazard job and the sail was beating heavily on the way to the dock. Not good.

As for the reason, halyard was wrapped around at the top. I googled a few articles and looks like I put the halyard backwards - it should have gone through the small block attached to the mast under the forestay attachment point that acts as a diverter. Instead I went the other way around, going through the block at the attachment point first and through the diverter block second, so it was parallel to the furling. Also, I have learned that day that my sidestays are definitely way too loose, so that probably caused the forestay to be too slack. Also, I have the turnbuckle on the bottom end on forestay, and the drum and whole furling was sitting too low, so most of the the turnbuckle was inside the furling. There is a screw that fixes the drum to the aluminium pipe of the furling, and the screw protrudes a whole centimeter inside the furling, seems like it's longer than the center point inside. It made my life difficult before with attaching the whole assembly to the plate, and it may have made it snag at the turbuckle, locking the whole thing. So I have identified three causes, on top and on the bottom, and the low tension. Basically the whole troubleshooting list in the manual. One is my error, one is previous owner error, the third - construction defect. I intend to fix both. Also looks like I wasn't attaching the whole thing properly: I was pinning both furling metal plates and forestay to a bow plate with a single pin. Making it go through both was really difficult and time consuming. By looking at the manual I realized that forestay is supposed to be pinned to the holes on the furling plates, and the whole thing is pinned to the bow plate when the mast is risen, which should make the whole process so much easier.