Or, a place for everything,
and everything in its place …
Here’s something I really
wish I had known about when I was starting out. If I had spotted this problem,
realized why the guy showing me his boat had to use a winch to control his
roller furler, I would only have bought the boat if he had agreed to fix it.
A friend provided some very
clear images of real trouble at the top of roller furlers. They’re not the
only way a “halyard wrap” can snap your forestay like a twig and send your mast
tumbling down – a catastrophic accident, especially in high wind and/or rough
water, so see the last picture of how it should really look. I’m trying to get
your attention here, because this kind of disaster is easily avoided.
Here are two images of what real
trouble looks like. These aren’t the only possible examples. Use your
binoculars to inspect the top of the forestay and look for any damage.
As you will see if you go to the linked articles, the problem can result in
other kinds of damage, but all damage to your forestay is serious stuff.
Photos by Bruce Bingham. The top one is
my boat; the one on the bottom, a friend’s boat.
In the first case, a young
family had just bought a used sailboat, and were sailing out on a BCYC weekend
cruise. They went through the bascule bridge and then put their sails out – or
tried to. They had a lot of trouble with the headsail, felt uneasy about their
readiness to take the trip, and returned to the club. At the club, they
described two things they had noticed – the roller furler wasn’t working, and
the backstay seemed loose. One of the fellows shot out of his seat and raced to
their boat. Sure enough, the forestay had actually snapped, and only the roller
furler was holding the mast up. He secured it with an extra halyard to temporarily
replace the lost forestay. This family was lucky and their mast did not fall
down.
The second person was me.
Even though I had a boat survey done by someone highly recommended to me, he
told me he did not go up the mast. I understood that. His life would depend on
the strength of an unknown halyard and rigging. However, he could have used a
pair of binoculars. If he had, he would have seen the state of my forestay.
This wire was one core wire with 19 smaller ones wrapped around it. At the top
of the forestay, the small wires were splayed out. Small birds could have
nested there (OK, that's an exaggeration). Bruce Bingham, retired naval architect, noticed it when he went
up my mast for another reason. He came down immediately and told me that my
forestay was severely compromised.
In the last case, a couple in
the club had a halyard wrap and hired a man to replace the damaged forestay. This the man did,
but without solving the problem of why the halyard was wrapping around the
forestay, and within 24 hours it had happened again. Those poor people went through two forestays in less
than 48 hours. OUCH.
The solution is simple and
inexpensive – a halyard restraint, which when placed at the right point, guides
the halyard to the roller furler at a slight angle (Bingham recommends 7º) so
that the halyard can’t wrap around the forestay and cause torque and twisting
of the forestay.
Photo by Bruce Bingham. A Halyard restraint
leads the halyard at a safe angle
so it can’t wrap around your forestay.
LESSON LEARNED: If it feels hard to control
your roller furler when it shouldn’t, don’t put a winch on it and force it. STOP!
Get out a pair of binoculars and inspect the interaction between your roller
furler, your forestay and your headsail halyard. Your roller furler should move
freely and easily, and if it doesn’t, there’s something wrong. Forcing it with
a winch could cause severe damage or even bring your mast down. If you have to
get the sail down for some reason, stop trying to roll it up, and remove it
from the roller furler.
Unfortunately, you’ll find
all sorts of bad advice on the topic of halyard wraps if you search online. One man had a “couple of
kinks” in his forestay from halyard wrap, and someone told him to just increase
the tension on the forestay, and the wire would straighten out. Other people
saw the picture of the kinks and suggested making homemade modifications where
the roller furler is attached at the bottom.
No. It’s too late. His
forestay was badly compromised, and since his mast could come down if/when that
forestay snaps, possibly in a bad situation when it’s under a lot of strain, he
has to replace the forestay and install a proper halyard restraint. I know it’s a
little pricey to replace a forestay (oh boy do I know), but this is no time to go either clever or
cheap.
Here are two more articles on
the topic. If you don’t believe what I’m saying – and there’s really no reason
you should – talk to the company that manufactured your roller furler, or a
marine architect, or a marine surveyor. While I really value the advice I have
gotten from many sailors more experienced than me, sometimes the advice one gets
isn’t very good. Sometimes experienced sailors love nothing more than
“MacGyvering” something, or thinking up their own creative solution to a problem
that already has a known good and reliable solution. Sometimes "MacGyvering it" is necessary
if you’re out to sea and something breaks, but it shouldn’t be your first
choice when you have easy access to the proper remedy.
From KANSAS CITY SAILING
From SAIL MAGAZINE
And, just for fun, and in case you're not familiar with this old TV show:
"The series revolved around MacGyver, whose main asset is his ... inventive use of common items – along with his ever-present Swiss Army knife. The clever solutions MacGyver implemented to seemingly unsolvable problems – often in life-or-death situations requiring him to improvise complex devices in a matter of minutes – were a major attraction of the show ... All of MacGyver's exploits on the show were ostensibly vetted to be based on scientific principles (even though the creators acknowledged, in real life one would have to be extraordinarily lucky for most of MacGyver's ideas to succeed)..."
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacGyver
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