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Roller furling and general genoa questions
Posted:
Mon Aug 13, 2018 7:04 pm
by 109jb
So I'm working on getting my new to me DS II ready and was checking out my front sail today. It is obviously a genoa, since it is huge. It has hanks for hanking onto the forestay, but looking at it, instead of a luff rope, it has a steel cable about 1/8" in diameter sewn in with cable eyes at each end. It appears that it was added to the sail because the sail also has the eyelets at the corners. Does this sound like this sail is set up for roller furling? If so, what do I need to set it up for roller furling?
Next is where the sheets for the genoa should run. I gather they run outside the side stays but do they then go to the normal jib blocks, or do they run to the blocks further aft on top of the gunnel?
Re: Roller furling and general genoa questions
Posted:
Mon Aug 13, 2018 7:26 pm
by 109jb
Re: Roller furling and general genoa questions
Posted:
Mon Aug 13, 2018 7:42 pm
by hsumralljr
The luff wire you see in the jib is part of normal headsail construction, and not necessarily added for roller furling. The wire is designed to take load of the halyard instead of just stretching the dacron sail itself.
Re: Roller furling and general genoa questions
Posted:
Mon Aug 13, 2018 8:42 pm
by GreenLake
What Herb said.
Also, the wire may not be as much of afterthought as you think. You will find a lashing between each pair of eye / wire thimble. That lashing controls the stretch of the fabric when the wire is taught. It can be adjusted in principle.
Re: Roller furling and general genoa questions
Posted:
Mon Aug 13, 2018 9:11 pm
by 109jb
10-4. How about the sheet routing for the big genoa?
Re: Roller furling and general genoa questions
Posted:
Tue Aug 14, 2018 7:03 am
by GreenLake
Sheet routing, that's an interesting question.
I'd think that you would need to lead the sheets outside the stays, otherwise you'd be unable to set if for reaching.
You'd want a bit of a track so you can adjust the ratio between leech and foot tension by moving the fairlead. The forward most fairlead position would probably not be forward of the clew. At least I can't think of a scenario right now. I have no idea how far back from there you might need the aftmost fairlead position. Perhaps it's a simple question of scaling the length of the jib track by 150%.
It would seem to me that if you use this genoa in place of the standard jib that you could route the sheets from their fairleads forwad to the jib fairleads and use the cleats for the jib. That would be most convenient for your crew.
All of this is off the top of my head, so don't take my word for it.