Sparcraft Mainsail Furling

[FlightPlan]

I have friends, sv/Lady, Catalina 470, sailing from Panama to New Zealand, currently in Ua Pou and they need help on Sparcraft mainsail furling system. They need a technical procedure to inspect the lower unit bearings which they suspect are fouled. If anyone knows the procedure to remove the bearings without dropping the mast, they could use the help.

They say the following:

Attempting to furl the main, we noticed an unusual amount of strain on the furling line. On further inspection, we were surprised to find that we could turn the furling mandrel by hand and successfully furl the sail, but repeated attempts to do so with the furling line were unsuccessful. The lateral loads applied by the furling line are binding the mandrel at the upper or lower bearings of the mandrel. However, the bearings above and below the mandrel do not sound right. We have no drawings of the furling system. How do we proceed to assess and diagnose the root cause of the binding. How is the unit disassembled? Can it be lubricated? Are there serviceable parts on that assembly?



The top bearing is free floating. Haven't ever had to deal with the lower unit. We recently did have a lot of drag when furling the sail. What we found was a sheave at the end of the boom had failed causing outhaul line to drag. The cure was to re-rout the line to an previously unused sheave.

They have very limited internet and are transmitting thru sailmail. They have downloaded the parts drawing from

http://www.sparcraft-us.com/us/techn...esignation.pdf




sv/Lady further states:


"They refer to it as F1410E. They assign it a part number of 42201901413. We think the mast section is F1410. We need more detail than this. The main question is Can the bearings be replaced? or does the mast have to be pulled? Until we answer that, there is no need to go further. We are fairly certain that the problem is with the bearings that are immediately above and below the mandrel screw (deck level)."