Continuous roller furling line.

[DarthOccam]

Dan:  very nice splicing work.

We have a single line furler on Serenity and learned the hard way the need to keep the system tight when we leave the boat.  We keep at least 3-4 wraps of the sheets around the headsail.  Then I bring the sheets forward and tie them off on the pulpit, then store the rest in the anchor locker.  The furling line gets snugged down with a clutch in the cockpit. 

This has worked well, except for the one time year before last when I was cleaning the fairleads and left a few feet of slack in the furling line.  A Santa Anna wind kicked up overnight and the headsail partially unfurled.  Fortunately, a live-aboard heard the racket and secured the sail before it completely flagged itself to death.  Still, it was pricy to get it repaired.   

Lesson learned.

Michael

[Fuzzy]

Dan:
How many turns do you wrap around the winch drum?
Larry

[Stu Jackson]

We have foot blocks (on our Mark I) and I tie a figure eight knot on doubled sheet lines at the foot block.  The sheets are used to pull the sail out, so cleating off the furling line is what stops it from unfurling.

[TonyP]

I may have said this on a similar post. I now use a sliding midship cleat on the outer rail as it is not in use when sailing.... Tony

[Indian Falls]

In reply to the last 4 posts:

Micheal: Thanks!  and    I've never had a problem with the head sail unrolling at the dock for any reason.  I pull the sheets tight to keep them off the deck and the furler is cleated off to stop unrolling, with about 2 wraps of the sheets around the sail...

Larry:  I don't use a winch for the furler since it's a continuous line furler. 

Stu:  I think you're talking about a single line furler?  I haven't been cleating one line, I've been pulling both hard then wrapping around a single cleat.  Then finding that I cannot pull it tight enough in strong wind. If I misunderstand you... then how do you tie a fig 8 in a continuous line?

Tony:  I have one of those track mounted mid-ship cleats and never thought of employing it for the ''outgoing" line when trying to reef the head sail.  Just slide it back to within reach and Viola... two cleats!  Thanks for the tip!

I should be able to put twice the amount of force on the furling drum with two cleats right?

You gotta love this forum, I sure do.

[Stu Jackson]

Stu:  I think you're talking about a single line furler?  I haven't been cleating one line, I've been pulling both hard then wrapping around a single cleat.  Then finding that I cannot pull it tight enough in strong wind. If I misunderstand you... then how do you tie a fig 8 in a continuous line?

Dan, I was talking about the jib sheets.  I just double up the end and tie the figure 8.

[Les Luzar]

Larry,
I wrap my jib sheets at least twice around my winches then lock into the self-tailor. This is double security for me since I also wrap my furler line at least three times around the jib and then cleat it off. At the dock, I like to have the sheets taught so that I too can hold on to them walking forward, and I also hang my pistol hose on those sheets when I am washing the deck. Another reason I do this is that I do not have to lead the sheets back to the cockpit when I go sailing, they are always ready to go!

[Indian Falls]

This thread is about the continuous line and I was focused on that, not paying attention to the sheets and drum wrap comments as such...  My apologies if I saw no relevance to those associated comments. 

I wrap 3-4-5.. whatever.. not important to me.  Obviously 2 is pretty minimal and asking for trouble, which may be why I never saw my headsail unfurl unless I wanted it to.

It's the traction in the furling drum VS the continuous line that is my current bane.  I do think that I'll get better bite if I use two cleats, either the midship cleat or the harder to get to stern cleat.  Just have to wait another 2 1/2 months...