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I think I goofed
When I transported the boat home, the CDI roller furler was tied off with the roller bent over the bow rail. I did'nt think much of it at the time, and it stayed that way for a few weeks.
We did the trial mast raising yesterday in the driveway, and it went smooth until.....I realized that it has memory
I took it off the boat and made a temporary front stay to hold the mast foreward.
Per the CDI website, you can put it "in the sun with the bend reversed, and in a couple of weeks it will flatten out".
My question is: has anybody made this goof and fixed it with this method?

Sometimes learning curves just suck

Thanks,

Rich

I've not tried that method that reportedly works, but thought I might of had to. Last winter, I stored the RF with genny on inside the boat. Try putting a 30'+ RF in a less than 26' space. It stored in a snake shape for about 5 months. When I pulled it out of the boat and layed it on the ground, it was normal straight! Guess I was lucky with an 11 year old RF!

I had to use a hair dryer. The New Zealand wind was cooling the RF faster than the sun could heat it. Bend it opposite to the kink & Warm the bent section.

Once it's taught, it matters naught.

Same goes for bends in the mast and everything else. Get it under tension and all is good.

Thanks for the replies.

Mastreb: I was wondering about just putting the RF on under tension per the usual installation. I was/am afraid of cracking it when I do so. The RF had a complete 90 degree bend. After sitting in the driveway for 1.5 days, its much better. I'm going to leave it there for a while longer.
BTW...Cardiff is a nice area. We lived near Oceanside for a few years. (Camp Pendleton). My wife goes back to Cali 2-3 times a year to visit family in Buena Park, Orange and ?? (the place where the swallows return each year).

Fair winds,

Rich

06HARLEYULTRA wrote:the place where the swallows return each year.

Hey Rich--that's Capistrano, which is about 20m north of Oceanside past Camp Pendleton. I've certainly got nothing to complain about here in Cardiff!

Thats it
I was having an old fart moment...


Rich

Slight curves and bends in the CDI FF2 extrusion won't matter for sailing performance unless you are a real performance nut head....

Ours got bent when it was put in the shipping container, then spent two weeks baking in Panama waiting for transshipment. It was so difficult to furl it that we had to do something.

tewharaunz wrote:It was so difficult to furl it that we had to do something.

What did you do?

Rich

Mine had several bends in it because of the way it was strapped to the mast during transport. No amount of reverse bending or heat seemed to help so I finally bought a new one. Now I notice, to my chagrin, that it developed a twist. I'm guessing from the torsion when it's rolled. That's more annoying than the bends because it affects the leading edge angle.

I had the same issue with a s bent luff that was also twisted. The first thing I tried was putting the entire luff into some black abs drain pipe and letting it bake in the sun. I left it outside in the hot California sun for several weeks and it seemed to help a little bit with the S bends. I then tried bending the luff with cinder blocks as weight in the sun and that helped even more for the s bends. I eventually just lived with it. I couldn't ever get the luff to untwist.

Come to think of it, i got rid of the worst of the kinks with hair dryer heating & bending in the opposite direction but it does have a twist. The ends are the same (parallel) but the middle is about 90 degrees out. It doesn't hamper furling/unfurling so I haven't done anything about it.

I store mine in the winter strapped to the ceiling in my garage. There is a slight bend to it in the spring but when I rig Mental Floss it straightens out just fine.

Catigale wrote:Slight curves and bends in the CDI FF2 extrusion won't matter for sailing performance unless you are a real performance nut head....

So whats the matter with that

J