Jib roller reefing

[Dick Wynne]

Has anyone built Victorian-style wooden roller jib reefing, and if so how? To be clear, I want to achieve a system which sits around, but does not install in series with, the forestay, so its bearings don't carry the staying tension. As a result it would simply rest on a bottom bearing of some kind, with the sail luff being tensioned to the top of the roller, not to the masthead. I accept you can't get a bar-taut luff this way. Sail is 54 sq ft, luff length 15ft.

I am trying to avoid a modern (and anachronistic) off-the-shelf unit, whilst approaching its reliability, i.e., I don't want much! I already have Wykeham-Martin bronze furling gear on my present 15ft boat, on which it performs staying (and sterling) service. On my new boat (25ft and a bit more sea-going) this is probably not a good
idea, and a separate forestay is not practicable on the design, nor desirable from a potential entanglement point of view should everything get out of control.

Questions I have: How to form the lower bearing? What timber for the roller? Presumably laminated in 2 parts after planing/routing out the centre hole and luff slot. How to attach the top of the luff wire? How best to achieve low friction & wear between roller and stay?

[ 11-28-2004, 06:18 PM: Message edited by: Dick Wynne ]

[Thad]

So, Dick, Have you studied the Albert Strange design shown in the Clay/Miller book, p. 83? He lands a wooden roller on a lignum vitae bearing, lashing the jib luff to the roller.

[John B]

I don't quite get why you'd want to do this Dick.
If the halyard isn't tensioned to the mast then tension for the sail must be created by compression on the new wooden luff spar.??
I know what you mean about the entanglement of forestay and furler in series but that's what we live with and once you know what/ how it becomes a non issue.
Ian Wright runs his unit without a headstay but that's because his boats primary forestay is actually his 'staysail' stay. I'm presuming you have a sloop so don't want to do this.
'One day' perhaps, I'll re engineer our inner forestay to be the same to get rid of the headstay but for now... no problemo.
Oh... If you really want to make a wykham martin furler work well, chuck the top swivel and buy a modern code zero sail unit with torlon or similar bearings.
We put one on the boat late last season and each time we furl now we nearly fall off the back of the boat... the effort has halved.at least.

[Dick Wynne]

Thanks Thad / John B,

Yes, seen the AS book drg but wanted to get other takes on the problem, and learn from others' mistakes so my own will at least be different. And yes, tensioning luff on the roller alone has drawbacks - apart from the tension I don't think the sail could be made to lower with roller in situ.

The boat is a yawl with a relatively modest size jib. Therefore reefing it will be of marginal need compared to a sloop with one overlapping foresail, say. By the time I would want to reef the jib, the main will be completely down, and if jib & mizzen are too much it'll be a whole gale, and in mercifully few of those times would I need to actually make headway instead of riding it out.

You can see I'm talking myself out of fancy technology already! Am leaning towards Wykeham-Martin furling gear with a separate forestay, and changing down to a storm jib hanked to it on the very few occasions when required.

[John B]

We do that in reverse Dick. Our #1 and #2 working jibs set on the wykham martin and our big jb hanks on to the forestay. I'm glad you're leaning that way ... I'm not too keen on your luff spar without halyard idea.
FYI, what I find is that you set the jib to the same approximate tension as the headstay, make sure the swivel has nothing( like the shackel pin head on the W.M top swivel) sticking out( or cover it with a shield), and keep a bit of seperation between the stay and the furler and it will work fine. ( we've had some nuisance wraps happen in the past but not too often now )