Twin tracks on furler foil

[mikedefieslife]

Here's a peculiar one.

I have a cutter rig. Twin tracks on the headsail foil could be useful travelling long distances down wind, however, I don't have that. What I do have is twin tracks on the baby stay foil.

The only reason I could think of this would be, is to very quickly raise a storm jib, but then most catamarans just run bare poles, and storm jib is hank on anyway.

Any thoughts?

[Pete7]

Do you have a spare forestay either wire/rope or Dyneema which you could use to hoist the second head sail using hanks?

The storm jib needs to be hanks because in a real storm the rope could pull out of a foil. However, nothing stopping you having another small jib to use in gale conditions. We have an 80% jib,not used much but it was cheap enough second hand. One thing we did do was when the jib was converted from hanks to rope the rope luff extends all the way up so the roller furling top swivel is in the normal place to furl a sail.

Pete

[mikedefieslife]

Yeah, but mostly catamarans don't bother with storm jibs, and most cutters just use the small stay sail considering it's almost the same size and can be furled to any size you like.

Anyway, that's beside the point. I'm curious as to what use the second track is on such a small furler that only allows for a maximum 7m2 sail.

[Pete7]

Could be as simple as that is what Kemps had in stock at the time when the order was placed.

[chouliha]

Originally Posted by mikedefieslife

Yeah, but mostly catamarans don't bother with storm jibs, and most cutters just use the small stay sail considering it's almost the same size and can be furled to any size you like.

Anyway, that's beside the point. I'm curious as to what use the second track is on such a small furler that only allows for a maximum 7m2 sail.

I agree with the previous post. Many of the furlers come standard with a double groove. Most of the Profurl units come with a double groove. We have a Profurl “Basic” model and it’s a single groove system.

I think the double groove system might be standard offering with your unit.

Cheers

Chuck
Jacaranda

[Chuck Hawley]

I have a theory.

Most aluminum extrusion furlers that I have used have two tracks. Some both face aft, and some face in opposite directions. It costs the manufacturer virtually nothing to have two tracks, and it offers some versatility. I have sailed for perhaps a thousand miles with two sails sharing the same extrusion.

In your case, I think your boat simply came with a one-slot furling extrusion forward and a two-track furling extrusion on the staysail. They simply used products from different vendors. No thought was given to the choice.

Presuming you wanted to fly a smaller, storm staysail, my guess is that you'd remove the working staysail and replace it. A second track wouldn't help in that case.

Cheers,

Chuck