Home-made roller reefing

[jimmy]

I'm considering making a a roller reefing set-up for my old wooden sailboat partially because I'm cheap (well mostly), but also because it is hard to find one that fits without modification (wire size, turnbuckle type, etc.) and I can't find one that I don't think will look out of place on my boat. I know about the Wykeham-Martin and Merriman furling gears, but I would like the ability to reef and I think the awkward installation requiring extra hardware to mount them on the bowsprit insde the stay at least partially offsets the look of the drum.

I think some of the older units that have a plain stainless steel drum would look fine, but it is so difficult to find information on any particular unit to see if it will work on your boat that I have given up on that approach.

I've found a few sites on the web where people have made their own furlers (sounds better than reefers as a short way to refer to the unit), and a description in Brent Swain's book about how to make one out of aluminum including making an aluminum profile out of aluminum pipe welded together. Most of these are quite simple, which is part of their appeal, but also probably not very attractive unless you are very skilled at metalwork (I'm probably not).

I have been looking around consignment stores in nearby towns and and have seen various parts including aluminum profiles and a few drums including one plain SS drum and one bronze No 2 Merriman drum. So I have been thinking of making my own furler. If people can make them from scratch, starting with actual aluminum profiles and drums should be possible. The SS drum would be the easiest since I think it originally was a unit where the stay went through it. The bronze Merriman drum is more appealing for asthetic reasons, but more problematic since it would require isolating the aluminum from the bronze and drilling a hole through it for the stay. I don't know enough about the internal anatomy to know if this is possible.

So has anyone made their own roller furling/reefing from scratch or patched one together from parts?

[Canoeyawl]

Reefing and furling are two different things.
My sailmaker has advised me that although you may be able to reef with a furler but to be effective when reefed the sail must be cut appropriately.
Some of the Albert Strange deigns show a split wooden tube siezed onto the headstay.

[andrewe]

Hi, I made a furling gear for a friends small cutter. Reefing implies being able to set part of the sail, this requires a foil/tube to roll the sail on. Furlers like the Wykeham-Martin are either in or out.
The base was a cycle hub, with half the bearing at the bottom with a drum in SS welded to it and the rest as a top swivel. Using a steel hub and SS bits is obviously a recipe for corrosion, but it was an experiment and after 2 seasons is still going fine. The boat is trailer sailed.
If you are holding your mast up with such a tackle you need to think carefully. Most bowsprite cutters are well stayed to the stem, so not a prob. My current project is such a rig and I will be making a more sophisticated version with an aluminium hub. I should add that I am an experienced metal worker and enjoy doing my own thing- rather than buying. I find it much more satisfying. (Does that define cheap?)
Rgs. Andrew

Can´t remember who it was who made a reefing system in the late 1800s/ early 1900s with a wooden foil. Sounds a bit clumsy if you can get ally nowdays.-A

Canoeyawl got there first. I´m a slow typist-A

[Hwyl]

Did you look at CDI http://www.sailcdi.com/ffmain.htm

[Ian McColgin]

The problem to solve with roller reefing is that a sail is three dimensional, not like a window shade at all. Just rolling always leaves slack in the center which under the stress of sailing will produce a hideous shape and will over-stress the new peak and tack.

All strategies to solve this have problems. The simplest and least troublesome is to stitch varying amounts of closed cell foam, usually strips about 3/4" to 1" wide and maybe 3/8" or so thick and spaced about 1/2" or so apart more space near the luff. You roll with the side these strips are on inside, allowing the strips to close up with the roll. There are more strips towards the center of the sail to take out the bag that would otherwise develop and to give controled draft. You roll to a mark - reef tack and peak patches - because there's just one place where that set of foam strips will work just right.

When unreefed, one side of the luff has ridges and valleys normal to the air-flow which is at least a little less efficient than a clean luff.

Some years back there was a sort of geared foil that provided differential rolling, gathering the center before rolling along foot and leach. Mechanically fussy, I've not seen this around much lately.

Finally, there have been shaped foils of various sorts, fatter in the middle like the better roller furling booms, that like the foam approach can reef to one position. These are clunkey and diminish the clean airflow that's one advantage of a foil.

So, in modern terms you are more likely to be happy with two different jibs and just get used to changing them.

The Merriman type requires that the luffwire in the jib be really robust - literally as strong as the headstay. For that reason the bearings at the top and bottom need to be machined with great precision and durability for a very hostile environment.

When it works the Merriman type is the nicest for sail changes as the sail goes up and down and is moved about in a snake. Sure beats a lot of loose dacron trying to toss you overboard while you feed the luff-tape into a foil. However, when the Merriman type siezes up so you can't roll up to strike, you have a real nightmare getting it down. Strangely, it is easier then to head off wind and strike if in the lee of the main.

I personally still prefer piston hanks on a stay. Just have a downhaul threaded to make keeping the sail tame a snap. If you go with a clubbed jib or camber spar, add lazy jacks and life becomes rather marvelous.

Hanked on jibs can be made reefable - as was common some years back - but frankly I think it easier to change jibs.

One nice dodge is to learn how to bag the sail before unhanking it and how to hank before unbagging. Makes life on the bowsprit less likely to involve swimming.

G'luck

[andrewe]

Nice overview Ian
Andrew

[jimmy]

Thanks, so only one person so far who has tried building one. I thought there would be more here. I expected to hear stories about people casting their own parts, etc.

I'm clear on the difference between furling and reefing. Either one would be an improvement over going out on the bowsprit to change sails on a boat with now pulpit or lifelines. The set-up I am currently thinking of is a roller reefing system on the headstay and either making my inner forestay detachable or replacing it with a small sail on a furling gear. This would give me a lot of sail options, most of which didn't involve leaving the safety of the cockpit.

I've looked at a lot of furlers (by which I mean both furling and reefing systems) on the web. The CDI is a good example where I would have to pay more than $1300 for a cheap looking system and then I would have to pay more for an new turnbuckle and to get a new end swaged onto my stay. I tried getting opinions on a system that was almost half that much an looked a lot better, but mostly got ignored so I guess nobody has tried one.

http://www.aladocanada.ca/

Thanks for the info on roller reefing and sail shape Ian. I'm aware of the problem. Like a lot of things to do with boats it seems to be just a matter of weighing the advantages against the disadvantages. I expect most of the time I would just use it as a furler anyway. To give you an idea of my skill/comfort level, I have never actually changed a sail underway or even carried another sail. If the conditions don't suit the sails I'm using, I lower them and go home. I'm usually sailing single handed and when I do have crew they are usually less experienced than me. I'm in the process of trying to refit my boat to make it easier and safer to sail my boat single handed or with inexperienced people. I think even the addition of a roller reefing system that had bad sail shape when reefed would be a dramatic improvement.

If anyone else has experience or thoughts about building their own roller reefing system, I would love to hear them. Thanks
J

[Ian McColgin]

Yeah, there's a difference. Where I sail, if you can't change sails you might not get home. And I have seriously tried to make a roller furler into a roller reefer.

Even on furler, I'm not sure you get the loads. On my rather lightly loaded old Alden 43' schooner, the loading on the jib luff wire was about 8000#. Those swivels take some seriously good machining.

It is not at all hard to handle a sail out on a bowsprit if you take a little time to learn the traditional skills. If you choose not, then g'luck.

[Stephen]

I picked up a drum that was built partially out of Tufnel - that might be a fitting material for your boat.

[jimmy]

Hi Ian,
I'm not sure if I understand what you are trying to say. It seems like you are trying to complicate the question. Most roller reefing systems don't really take any load so there isn't any pressure on the bearings, if there even are bearings. The two systems I have looked into and seriously considered don't have any real bearings. It is cool that Andrewe made one with bike parts (although that was a furler, not a reefing system), but I was thinking of something more simple. It seems to me that a roller reefing system would be simpler to make than a roller furling system like the Merriman and Wykeham-Martin gears that would require good bearings.

If you have actually tried to make a roller reefing system it would be nice if you told us about that rather than straying off topic. Thanks.
J

[Canoeyawl]

I have thought about this quite a bit; there are many aspects to the thing aside from the machine work. There are calculated loads, dissimilar metals with corrosion and lubrication issues, not to mention liabilities.
The swivels are an interesting part; the failure mode is the shearing load on the ball bearings. They are usually stacked up in three or more rows to prevent this. The smaller units with Delrin balls will actually deform the balls and become stiff or not roll at all in a severe load or overload situation. Metal parts have their own problems. In the end, a conventional hanked on jib is a superior sail because there are less compromises. And they can always be brought down to the deck.

For a dead simple furler with a minimum of parts the rig that Albert Strange drew up is worth a look. But like most furlers if it gets fouled up that jib will quickly become a liability.

[Hwyl]

The reason I posted the CDI link is to illustrate how it works. The halyard, block and cleat are all on the extrusion and therefore so is all the compression, the halyard is not on the mast, so there is no load on the swivels. If I were going to make one myself, that's the way I'd go, only I'd use a better extrusion than they do.

[jimmy]

OK, maybe I wasn't clear in my first posting. I'm thinking of building my own roller reeefing system using used aluminum profiles (or even a home-made one) and either making the lower drum portion myself or adapting an available used drum. The type of system I am thinking about would be like the one described in Brent Swain's book or for those who don't have it (I had to borrow it) similar in design to this one:
http://abone.superonline.com/~hatinc/rollereng.htm
or this:
http://www.aladocanada.ca/design.htm
All of these systems are built around the existing forestay and don't carry any load. I'm not planning on builing a furler system, but I would be interested in hearing from anyone who has built either a furling system or a reefing system.

I like the look of the Wykeham-Martin and Merriman furling gears, but I brought them up mainly for their looks and I was thinking about modifying a Merriman drum by making a hole right through the middle of it for the existing stay and attaching an aluminum profile to it with halyard sheaves at the top. If you could work out the obvious problems with this it would be the best of both worlds, the look of Merriman bronze with the performance of a more modern furler.

Hwyl: sorry, I thought you were suggesting getting one. Good point about how they work.

Canoeyawl: Thanks, the type of system I'm thinking of, like the ones above, don't carry any load and don't have any ball bearings or require lubrication. The Swain design is all aluminum, but I was thinking of something prettier, which could cause some dissimilar metal problems, especially if you mix aluminum and bronze. I wonder if it would be good enough to put some kind of plastic bushing between the two metals? I guess luff tape would jam easier than hanks, but his problem isn't specific to home-made systems. I think the idea of the systems I mentioned above is that they are so simple that little can go wrong.

Stephen: If tufnol is that brownish plastic-like fiber type stuff, it would look OK on my boat since I already have a couple of blocks made out of it, but I haven't seen anything like that around.

[Sven Heesterman]

I have a Furlex 200s for sale, eye to eye length 11.63 meter (don't know what that is in feet) After seeing the detail that goes in to one I would never ever atempt building one myself.

[andrewe]

Jimmy, the safety apect is always to the front of ones mind. You will know that many don´t like any system that might jam with the sail half or fully out, short of a halyard sticking hanked sails will come down. As you do short daysails you might try a downhaul (through the hanks and round a block at the tack) led back to the cockpit. We did this on the staysail on the same cutter. Quite convenient as it dowses the sail until you have time to bag it. Sort of a throttle too. The owner is very pleased as he nearly went for a swim trying to pull it down before. Cheap too...
On both his and my new boat a last resort would be to release the roller off the bowsprite and pull it inboard as neither of them hold up the mast.
Yes, Tufnol is that brown material used in blocks. Smells horrible whn you machine it. Classic marine in UK might help to source some. For your drum, two discs and a tube with through bolts would be easy. In sheet form it was (is?) used in electrical work. Might be another source.Also good mix with s.s. on the corrosion front.
Hope this helps,
Andrew

[Ian McColgin]

I see that I wasn't clear. The Merriman type is the simplest rollerfurler in that there's no extrusion and the sail is independent of the stay. That system of course has the bearings loaded just as highly as the stay.

On the otherhand, a system where the jib is affixed to an extrusion, tube or whatever that fits over the stay need not have serious strain, or at least can have strain that's relievable. A friend's boat has one where the upper and lower swivels have bearings deformed enough that you can roll with the jib halyard trimmed for a windy day, but slacking the hallyard solves that. Kind of diminishes the handiness of quick furling, but it works.

If you can't machine a foil, fitting a tube over the stay would work and you could have the luff sewn around that tube. Kind of clunkey and it means you can't get that jib off.

Perhaps this effort will result in a new, simplified roller system not yet dreamed of.

G'luck

[jimmy]

OK, I'm getting the picture. People here build and fix there own boats, sails, blocks, etc. but draw the line at roller furling and reefing systems.

Ian: the systems I am trying to get information about have not only been dreamed of, they have been built and used. The only variations I was thinking of were trying to use a Merriman drum instead of building one from scratch because I think it would look better and using used foils instead of making my own. I was just looking for people with firsthand experience.

Andrewe: The jib downhaul is a great idea and one that I'm going to try first anyway. The variation I'm going to try also runs out to the clew so that it will bunch the sail up into a ball, or if you don't release the halyard, it bunches the sail up on the stay depowering it.
http://www.widgetsailor.com/myboat/downhaul/jline.html

Sven: Thanks, but that is the kind of modern, complicated system I would like to stay away from. You're a little far away anyway.

Thanks to everyone for their input.
James

[Canoeyawl]

OK, I'm getting the picture. People here build and fix there own boats, sails, blocks, etc. but draw the line at roller furling and reefing systems.

James

Jib reefing and furling gear generally involves precision machine made parts that can discourage most builders from making their own. Although some of us may have a complete machine shop facility available to us, the building of the unit will still include some engineering calculations including loads, strength of materials, and corrosion issues. To miscalculate any one of these items is inviting trouble. To work at this empirically and ignore what has been done before will be expensive. By the time you arrive at a working plan it becomes impractical to build just one unit. If you are going to tool up and build one you may as well build ten, the cost will be almost the same. I suspect these are some of the reasons that it is not commonly done.

I will again point out the liability issue -This piece of gear if gone awry can rapidly become life threatening.

.

[Domesticated_Mr. Know It All]

Oh sorry........I got mixed up.
I thought this thread was about "reefer rolling" and I was gonna add my 2 cents.
Nevermind.

[jimmy]

Jib reefing and furling gear generally involves precision machine made parts that can discourage most builders from making their own. Although some of us may have a complete machine shop facility available to us, the building of the unit will still include some engineering calculations including loads, strength of materials, and corrosion issues. To miscalculate any one of these items is inviting trouble. To work at this empirically and ignore what has been done before will be expensive. By the time you arrive at a working plan it becomes impractical to build just one unit. If you are going to tool up and build one you may as well build ten, the cost will be almost the same. I suspect these are some of the reasons that it is not commonly done.

I will again point out the liability issue -This piece of gear if gone awry can rapidly become life threatening.

.

It's too bad people are so scared about this. I don't believe any of the above are valid concerns with the systems I have been discussing, but you are probably right, people are probably scared. Having a furling/reefing gear failure become life threatening seems unlikely and it's hard to imagine a failure that doesn't happen with commercial systems. As for machining, the Brent Swain design is built without anything more complicated than a jigsaw, table saw and an aluminum welder. Engineering, how many people do engineering calculations on their boat designs, modifications, fittings, etc. Maybe a few but not many. Liability, that applies to all aspects of boat building, repairing, and operation. If you are worried about liability It think most people should think about things they haven't done. Almost everyone has something they have been putting off repairing, replacing, or maintaining. These are the things that are more likely to get you.

Anyway, if I decide to build my own I will let you know how it turns out.
J

[epoxyboy]

I know about the Wykeham-Martin and Merriman furling gears, but I would like the ability to reef and I think the awkward installation requiring extra hardware to mount them on the bowsprit insde the stay at least partially offsets the look of the drum.

The WM gear needs a luff wire in the jib, and as such is designed to take the place of the forestay - it is built like the proverbial brick s**thouse. Obviously though if you use it this way, a sail change on the water is not possible.

I dont know about the new versions, but the old ones run the same ballrace most commonly found in the headset of a bicycle - remember that the design dates back to around 1890! The plain steel bearings seem to cope just fine encased in grease and bronze. The old unit that I aquired looked pretty crusty but what really impressed me was that it came apart without any cursing, swearing, WD40, heat or hammers. If only my outboard came apart as easily!

Pete

[Ian McColgin]

I experimented with something like the gerr system in 1966 when my family bought Electra #2. The clew line was useful for bringing the extra huge 220% jib forward to get past the shrouds when tacking. Holding the clew of any of my sails - 90% jib, 150% and the big 220% - against the stay did little good and, when the wind caught the bunt, lots of harm. With piston hanked sails I trim the sheet while bringing it down with the downhaul and that keeps it nicely along one wash deck. You really need a downhaul because jibs tend to self-raise up the stay's slope if there's any real breeze.

A Merriman drum won't mate with a foil without considerable modification: You need to fit the foil to the drum so both turn together, you need to modify the drum to allow the stay to run through it unimpeded, and you need a second off-center shackle point for the tack pendant or cringle.

Foil types have a bearing fitting that slides over the foil. This connects the peak to the halyard. Merriman types have a very robust swivel that allows the sail to roll up with the entire set-up stress of the luffwire actually as loaded as the headstay. I always set mine up to the point of just barely inducing slack in the jibstay. We have some on the forum who do without the headstay altogether. I disagree with that practice as I like to be able to change jibs, and when I change it's likely that we've gotten to a Fresh Breeze (Force 5, say 20 knots) and you really don't want your stick unsupported at such moments.

To my mind making roller furling gear is a bit like making a turnbuckle: Yes you can if you're a machinist and in fact the fellow who is rebuilding the Marco Polo Roll-and-Go tends to do things like that to unique and clever patterns. You can make your own engine from scratch as well - as most steam heads do. But for most of us, it's a matter of we do for ourselves what we can do either better than what's there off-the-shelf or because we love pushing bits of wood together or whatever.

Since the roller is in the future anyway, allow me to share my favorite hank-on-bag-it approach that I've used, taught and know works finastkind on boats ranging for 18' to 120' and sail sizes from about a handkerchief to pushing a thousand square feet.

The key is the bag. Make a hole - really nice if you rope the perimeter - big enough to pass your fist and forearm through. Most sail bags have a strap handle across the bottom. Make one if not there. Attach some line, depending on your jib 4' or more, to the strap.

When the sail is down, held down by the downhaul and back along the deck by one sheet, let the sheet off and at a point a tad forward of halfway tack and peak to clew, grab the end of the bag's tag line, pass it through to the inside of the bag, around the sail and pull it back out. It helps to have the bag pushed sort of flat or even inverted loosely over your arm. Secure the line to something near-by like a life line staunch eon or, if the line's long enough, a shroud. Now pull the bag forward over the sail, dragging the part extending back to the clew into a sort of U fold into the bag. Once you've reached the top of the bag, cast off the tag line and continue stuffing till you get to the stay.

If you’re going sailing again, just leave sheets and halyard on, tie the bag around the stay and you’re set. If you’re taking the jib off, stick draw string through the clew to keep it near the surface if you leave the sheets out, or coil the sheets and stick them in the bag near the top, then unhank from the top pushing it all into the bag in order.

Now it’s packed and you can easily lug the bag out, pull up the sail’s tack and hank away, get the clew out and sheets attached, and all is still nice and secure. When you go to hoist, pull the tag line out from the bottom so the sail is free in the bag and pull the bag off. Or tie the tag line and hoist the sail out of the bag.

Some modern very hard finish Dacron sails and most mylar sails should not be just stuffed into a bag buy you’re not using that anyway. I never found that small random wrinkles hurt the set of a sail.

This might work so well for you that you just decide to forget the roller.

G’luck

[Todd Bradshaw]

I recall working on some sails for Chrysler Bucaneers that had a similar-sounding furling system which used something like a piece of small-diameter PVC pipe and a simple drum that spun it around the headstay to roll up the sail. It was rather crude, but didn't need to be load-bearing and furled OK. I don't remember exactly how they had the sail attached to their "foil". As for being used as a reefing system, it pretty much sucks if you have decent performance and reasonable sail life in mind. About all you can do is add a foam panel to the luff or attach the luff to the foil along it's middle, leaving it's extreme ends unattached. These methods will help wind-up the center section of the luff more than the ends in hopes of reducing some of the excess draft that the rolled sail will have. It's a little bit haphazard for my taste, but it doesn't sound like Jimmy is particularly concerned with performance. You do also need to consider that the fabrics used to make Genoas are woven quite differently from the fabrics used to make higher-aspect sails like working jibs. In normal use, the stresses on the two different types of sails are quite different. Rolling a Genoa down into a working jib is really not particularly good for it and will blow it out sooner, especially if you're reefing it because of high winds and expecting it to take even more pressure than it was designed for.

I'm a big fan of Dave Gerr, but not of that jib-brailing system (which is essentially what it is) The web author is wrong calling it a "jackline" as that's a very specific piece of sail rigging that serves a totally different function (it always makes me wonder when someone telling me how to rig sails obviously has some pretty fundamental gaps in their knowledge of them). In any case, the drawing of the thing in use is bogus and not going to happen. With nothing but that single line pulling the clew corner up to the stay, there is no way the upper and lower parts of the sail are going to follow neatly behind in a nice neat bundle along the back of the headstay. They're going to hang behind it in big unruly bags and given a bit of time, beat themselves to death.

I think you could use the system as a quickie brail for a few seconds at a time to bundle the jib into a more managable blob for immediate take-down, but leaving it brailed and flapping in any kind of wind will both ruin any decent jib in a hurry and brand the skipper an obvious idiot. You can call it "engineering" or "design" or whatever else you want, but to do it properly you also need to have some basic understanding of what's good for sails and what's not good for them and add that to the mix along with the nuts and bolts construction stuff. A bargain system that tears up a perfectly good jib every year or two may not be much of a bargain.

[jimmy]

Having the wires in you sail luff support the mast with a Wykeham-Martin or Merriman furler sounds scary. The Wykeham-Martin instructions say that you must have an independent stay to support the mast and I understood that was the way most people used them. I agree with Ian that I wouldn't want to leave the mast unsupported during a sail change.

Ian and Todd, thanks for the info. I'm going to try out the jib downhaul first and hopefully it will work well enough I won't need to worry about furling. This is only part of my "make my boat easier to sail" plan. This plan goes something like this:
1. run halyards to cockpit
2. buy a tiller pilot
3. move inner forestay to stem and make it detachable
4 set up a jib/genoa downhaul system
5. install retractible lazyjacks
6. get a new or used mainsail with reef points (just roller reefing on boom now)
7. install roller furling/reefing

Maybe I will stop at 6, which would be nice because 7 is expensive. Number 3 doesn't make sense unless you know my boat which inexplicably has both the headstay and inner forestay attached at the end of the bowsprit, making it impossible to tack with the genoa which goes on the headstay. At least I assume it is impossible, I've never tried it. With the inner forestay detachable, I can use the genoa in light air and reattach the inner forestay and use a jib in heavier weather. Anyway, I will keep researching roller furling/reefing for now. Thanks

[philbrown7]

A very cheap and simple furler is seen on this web page.

http://www.geocities.com/felixthefis...ib_furler.html

It's shown on a Guppy 13'. I'm considering trying to make one for my Hartley 16 ', but it would be no good on a bigger boat. Whilst henked on jib's are technically better; because I sail by myself (or with non sailors) the jib often ends up in the water when I lower it so a furler should stop that.

[Andrew]

I replaced the roller furling on my Chrysler Mutineer, a 15' version of the Bucaneer. I placed a 3/4" copper pipe over the jib stay. It was split and drilled at the mast to be pinned there with the stay. I slid a 1" pvc pipe over the copper pipe. The luff of the sail was sleeved and slid over the pvc pipe and fixed with water clamps at both ends. I fashioned the spool out of 4" pvc pipe caps to slide over the 1" pvc pipe. I was slid up the pvc pipe to position it properly for the "take up line"(?) and secured with pvc glue. Apart from the homemade spool, this replicated the set up that was there.

[Treb001]

Hi Jimmy,
I am converting an older Schaefer wire furler to a reefing furler. I Have some pics available if your interested. just e-mail me your email address and I can send you what I am planning.I tried loading a file on this message but as not sucessful.
Using slotted PVC ( for the rope bolt) and reinforced with wooden plugs the foils would be light and still strong enough. I am going to mount an addtional inner stay (10") so as not to put too much strain on the mast fore stay. I have ye to have the mast hound fabricated. Will follow with more info as I go along.
I was lucky to pick up 2 Schaefer drums and top swivels. One is a 6" drum and the other a 7&1/2.
Cheers,
Bert