Hank on or Furler

[thomm225]

Some of these offshore guys are recommending hank on sails instead of furled sails, but I have gotten quite used to the furler that came on my boat even though it's an ancient Furlex furler

What do others here like and why?

Btw, I have to go forward to raise my main and reef as it is.

[marcjsmith]

What are your plans? Racing, off shore cruising....

I’m using a 30+ year old furlex type c-d. works fine. I too have to go fwd to play with the main.

Playing with a hank on sail would get tiresome. If you want to see what it’s like. Just use the foil on your furlex without furling. Raise lower and flake and pack the Genoa away each time you go sailing....Screw that noise....

[Yojimbo]

I'm only sailing inland waters mostly on small keelboats- Catalina 27/Hunter 28- both of which are club boats with furled headsails that I find convenient and keep me off the foredeck. Haven't had an issue yet but it is always in the back of my mind. Would appreciate any stories of others that had furler misfunction at a critical moment. How did you handle it/ what steps did you need to resolve the situation.

Closest I've come is when some club member decided to undo the stopper knot of the jib sheet on a previous sail that almost made it though the car before we snagged it in a good breeze.

[thomm225]

Originally Posted by marcjsmith

What are your plans? Racing, off shore cruising....

I’m using a 30+ year old furlex type c-d. works fine. I too have to go fwd to play with the main.

Playing with a hank on sail would get tiresome. If you want to see what it’s like. Just use the foil on your furlex without furling. Raise lower and flake and pack the Genoa away each time you go sailing....Screw that noise....

The furler groove(s) is tight on mine whereas the hank-on the forestay would move up or down much easier.

No racing here already did that for 15 years and maybe 450 races buoy and distance.

I hope to cruise a bit and maybe limited offshore round outer banks and maybe run the Keys to Dry Tortugas and possibly Bahamas

Have to see what I can handle as a 70 year old singlehanding a 27 foot bucking bronco.... at least the Lower Chesapeake makes it a workout after a couple days hard sailing when the wind is up

[thomm225]

Originally Posted by Yojimbo

I'm only sailing inland waters mostly on small keelboats- Catalina 27/Hunter 28- both of which are club boats with furled headsails that I find convenient and keep me off the foredeck. Haven't had an issue yet but it is always in the back of my mind. Would appreciate any stories of others that had furler misfunction at a critical moment. How did you handle it/ what steps did you need to resolve the situation.

Closest I've come is when some club member decided to undo the stopper knot of the jib sheet on a previous sail that almost made it though the car before we snagged it in a good breeze.

My furling line came out once as I neared land and decided to furl the jib.

Winds weren't too bad like 18 knots but I was stunned not being used to raising and lowering the jib.

Took me a bit to realize no big deal just tack and sail and lower when you can

The thing is it happen like a week after this big wind crossing. If it would have happen on this day the sail may have shaken my rig to pieces because I couldn't go forward ......boat would have rounded up

Video was taken after 3 hours crossing lower bay and I was somewhat in sync with the conditions and it had laid down a bit from earlier

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nXfjcCuiPk

[marcjsmith]

Buy a can of mclube. Spray the foil groove as high as you can reach. Then with someone helping you raise the sail, spray both sides of the luff tape as it goes in the groove. Sail will go up easy and come down likety split....

If you think that you have some gunk in the groove you could create a track cleaner and haul it up and down a few times after being soaked in a cleaning solution.

[Benz]

I prefer hank-on headsails, not only because they're safer (ever had a hank-on jam halfway out? Neither have I), but because a rolled-up sail makes for a lot of weight and windage aloft, and is a liability in strong winds.
On a recent voyage, even with all the shrouds tuned up tight, the rolled-up headsails tended to jerk violently from side to side; I don't know if it was because they were too loose (there's no turnbuckle to tighten them, and the backstay was bar-tight!) or if that's normal with really heavy, bulky sails on a furler ( I rarely sail boats with furlers to know), but it was disturbing, to think of the forestay and solent heaving against their pins like that. Seems like fatigue waiting to happen.

[psk125]

Hank-on sails allow you to change them relatively easily to adjust to wind conditions. You can leave a hank-on sail hanked on to the bottom of the forestay so that the luff is secured while you furl the sail and tie it off to the rail or lifelines. It stays attached to the boat. The luff of an unhoisted r/f sail is not secured and wind and waves can work it loose from the sail ties you may have used. The hank-on sails require going to the bow to hank or unhank them. A r/f sail can be furled without going forward, but not changed. Changing them leaves them relatively poorly secured on deck. Partially furled r/f genoas are not usually good airfoils, and if made strong enough to work partially furled in heavy air can be too heavy to work well fully unfurled in light air. A lot depends on upon your inventory of sails and how you plan to use them. Lots of variables, and every boat and every skipper is different.

[pnw2022]

For a boat 30 feet and under, I prefer hank on sails. Sail management at that size (flaking, stowing away) is still not that much trouble in terms of doing a simple day sail or something. There are also skills and experiences that people will always remember when going forward to change down the Genoa to a working jib when the weather pipes up? .

For single handed or a couple and 40+ feet, I think furling is definitely the way to go for ease of management. And yes, furler line chafe is real thing if you under sustained conditions for hours/days partially rolled in as one poster already noted. And always knowing the sail will drop to the deck when you ask it to, is a huge bonus in certain kinds of situations.

Meanwhile, if you are looking at used ~30 foot boats, I would not make this a decision point.

Only thing I would avoid (and this is my preferences only) would be non-furling foil type headsails. For racing, sure. Meanwhile, at least for me, the whole bit about somebody needing to deal with helping to pre-feed the sail into the foil while hoisting, somebody else driving, etc. is something that is just not that interesting.

[thomm225]

Originally Posted by marcjsmith

Buy a can of mclube. Spray the foil groove as high as you can reach. Then with someone helping you raise the sail, spray both sides of the luff tape as it goes in the groove. Sail will go up easy and come down likety split....

If you think that you have some gunk in the groove you could create a track cleaner and haul it up and down a few times after being soaked in a cleaning solution.

Regardless it will still be tight as compared to hanks.

[JPA Cate]

Hello thomm225,

First of all, you can, with the addition of a couple of clam cleats and some bungie cord or light line, set your boat to sail herself on the wind, thereby keeping her from rounding up. Some people tack over onto starboard to drop the headsail. You might want lacing on the lifelines to keep the sail aboard if something happens so that you need to drop it under way. You can also heave to on starboard to drop it, and it will help it fall on deck. In this way, you have the others giving way to you because you are on Starboard tack, while focusing on getting the sail down.

McLube is your friend for lubing the sail track on your furler, and will make luff tightening or loosening to control sail shape easier as well. [No fiduciary connection with them. It is relatively expensive, but does a good job.]

We've been using various furlers since roughly 1991 or 2. What I really like about them is that the sail stowage is totally out of the way. There was an intermediate state, where Jim used a KayZee head foil, that had magazines that loaded the sails. It was an extremely versatile setup, and facilitated inside out headsail changes, and running two sails DDW. But they all had to be stowed. We made on-deck sail bags, out of Sunbrella (with flaps over the zips to protect them), and that's what we did with our boat before this one. Now we have furling on both head stays. Our headsail and mainsail are actually quite large, and the genoa is difficult to brick on the boat tidily enough to fit through the companionway.

You make a considerable effort to stay in good shape for working the boat, maintaining endurance, speed, and flexibility. So, just maybe, you might like to try hank-on for a while. It would be when you find yourself putting off headsail changes because of the work involved that you might return to furling.

Ann

[marcjsmith]

Originally Posted by thomm225

Regardless it will still be tight as compared to hanks.

of course. hanks will have much lower friction.



That being said for a RF sail, If your sail is still tight IE you have to pull the sail down, then it may be possible that your luff tape is not sized properly for the foil groove or the tape or groove is damaged.



An unfurled sail should fall easily when the halyard is uncleated and the sail isn't under any load. At least mine is.

[SV Tom Crean]

Small boats, hanks are fine ... but if I had to choose on ANY boat I will go with a furler every single day of the week. Just makes sail handling simple and it also means that you don't put off hoisting or reducing sail. It's pull a line and you're done.

Originally Posted by thomm225

Some of these offshore guys are recommending hank on sails instead of furled sails, but I have gotten quite used to the furler that came on my boat even though it's an ancient Furlex furler

What do others here like and why?

Btw, I have to go forward to raise my main and reef as it is.

[thomm225]

Originally Posted by marcjsmith

of course. hanks will have much lower friction.

That being said for a RF sail, If your sail is still tight IE you have to pull the sail down, then it may be possible that your luff tape is not sized properly for the foil groove or the tape or groove is damaged.

An unfurled sail should fall easily when the halyard is uncleated and the sail isn't under any load. At least mine is.

Yeah the luff tape could be a little tight or large for the groove.

I got to thinking about hank-on sails because I found some used ones at Bacon sails but now I'm realizing I don't have a lot of room on my foredeck to be messing around with hank-on sails so I may just have to buy a new roller furling jib.

And I've had this roller furler setup now for 11 years.

I have a 16'6" kayak on the deck of my 27' Bristol 27 plus this huge Mantus M1 anchor.

Just upgraded from my CQR.

[rslifkin]

There's often the dilemma of "technically better" vs "better in use". A hank on sail (or one on a non-furling foil) has technical advantages. But that doesn't mean you'll get better use out of it. For racing, sure. But cruising single-handed, the advantages of being able to furl and unfurl from the cockpit, as well as being able to partially furl if you determine a sail change isn't reasonable under the current conditions are significant. So you may get better use out of the furling setup even though it's technically not quite as good.