Which Furler for Gennaker on Cat?

[myocean]

We are discussing a gennaker (125...135 m2) with furler for our cat and got some proposals from the sailmakers.
What are the advantages of the different furler options, e.g.
Selden CX40
Fancor FX2500
Profurl nex 5T
What's the best for cruising?

[Lagoon4us]

We have the Facnor, our FFR is ordered with delivery feb 2013 can't wait!!! But sadly can't help till then, what Gennaker design are you going for?
Cheers

[myocean]

I think an A2 would be good for the trade winds, isn't it?
I am just starting to learn more about the details.

[Stumble]

Myocean,

Take a look at the Selden GX. It's a true top down furler, for about 1/3 the price of the others on the market.

If you are ok with a captive luff system, then I would highly recommend the Colligio Marine one.

[monte]

i have the facnor on my genaker and I dont like the idea of that style furler at all
Its pretty dangerous, more suited to dinghys. They dont cleat off, dont have a positive grip on the line, can come undone accidently and have your genaker flogging, and can be a pain in the ass to use in any wind. I would much rather replace it with a furler like on the jib with a line back to the cockpit. I really cant see any benifit in this type of furler except it takes 30 seconds less to rig because you dont need to run a line.
I would set up a fixed furler on the bow and cleat the halyard to it when the genaker is off

[barnakiel]

All the units are good makes. Pick the one you like best (or else the one that is best economy).

Once you decided on the furler, forward the specs to your sailmaker - the furling sail needs a furler specific luff design (torque rope, luff rope fittings, etc..).

I have used Facnor and Profurl and found them nearly identical. I have seen the Selden unit and it looks well built too.

b.

[Lagoon4us]

Think you have to keep in mind these "furlers' are only to roll the sail up ie not reef, the sail should be dropped to the deck after furling or if left up a sock employed to contain BUT even then the windeage is high......

[Lagoon4us]

For trades we are using an identical No1 Genoa so we can wing-a-wing more so for safety and day after day trade sailing.

Most tracks have the second slot it's a choice whether to run with second halyard or both on the one.

Our FFR is for reaching winds to 20knots but being flat it will carry to 50deg true.

Just our way cheers.....

[myocean]

Getting more into this I realized, that furling really means its more difficult or impossible to have a sail designed for broad reach/downwind conditions.
For trade wind courses not really the smartest choice?

[barnakiel]

Originally Posted by myocean

Getting more into this I realized, that furling really means its more difficult or impossible to have a sail designed for broad reach/downwind conditions.
For trade wind courses not really the smartest choice?

Mate,

You must be somewhat more specific.

I mean: a boat with fore and aft rig is hardly 'designed for broad reach/downwind conditions'. Nowadays I think most new designs will avoid sailing dead downwind, which requires (if max efficiency is the aim) hoisting a proper spinnaker. And if this is what you mean, then indeed spinnakers are the last choice for having a furling sail. Most folks will use a sock instead, I think.

Now back to our newer generation boats, once dead downwind is sailed only when it is your only choice, the boat will be sailed in wind angles that allow you to hoist a kite of any design: a Code 0 sail, an APS, a gennaker - all these are furlable allright. Off course, they are furled all in or else they are flown all out, not like how one uses a furlable jib, staysail or a genoa.

I know I might be sounding enigmatic but just browse youtube some for seeing how each sail type is flown and you should be very comfortable to chose the kind of sail that you want for your boat.

Remember for tradewind courses you want an all-rounder anyways - and perhaps one optimized for plenty of downwind sailing in light conditions, but still able to do some upwind work in very rough conditions. A main, a flattish furling jib and a deeper kite on a furler will get you from A to B in a most comfortable way. The furling gear on the kite can be re-used to hoist more than one design of a kite - not that you really need more, but, if your pocket is deep enough, you may opt for a combo of a close reach and broad reach sails - for there is no warranty that all light wind days you will be going downwind.

Bueno, hope this adds some to the picture. Furling kites and broad reach sailing.

Cheers,
b.

[Ex-Calif]

Having just completed a one week Regatta in which 4 identical Sunsail Jeaneau 41s were racing here are some observations and some things we tried to gain advantage.

All boats had identical rigs and identical asymmetrical spinnakers. The spinnakers were "small" and without looking up the actual design I can say they were high clew, medium belly (not full and not particularly flat) and probably were about 1 1/2 meters short on the luff. This allowed a decision to fly the spin high or low with the gap at the masthead or foot or balanced. The decision to fly high or low was an attempt to project the spin above or around the main rededuce blanketing and sail deeper/faster.

Over the week we tried many things.

1/ Fly the spin low. We could carry this between 120 and 140 apparent. Shallower and we weren't getting any better speed than the jib and the leading edge kept collapsing. Deeper and the main blanked the sail. We worked luff tension and height to see if we could project it better but really was no help. The coolest configuration we found was about 90 degrees with the jib also deployed about 60% - This ended up looking like 3 sails and near as we could figure the jib acted as a vane to clean up the air through the slot. We only found this configuration late in the regatta but it was really fast. We found with any more jib deployed the slot got messed up and the sails became inconsistent. We smoked everyone on a reach with this.

2/ Fly the spin high - This really didn't help much but we felt we coupld go a little deeper. Maybe 150-160. However, the boats that sailed angles travelled further but when we rejoined at marks there really was no advantage.

3/ "Kiwi" style - We flew the spin like a symetrical (guy and sheet) with no pole - no poles were allowed or provided. Only really suitable with low to moderate winds (I think we would have been out of control in anything over 10 knots) - We could sail as deep as we wanted down to like 170 which made great course but sometimes we beat the angle guys and sometimes we didn't.

4/ We also flew it wing on wing with the main one time. This didn't give any advantage over the Kiwi Style but allowed us to fly it as an asym and probabbly could have carried this in higher winds.

We mucked about with the main a bit in each configuration with more centered main working on deeper angles when flying asym but sacrificing main pressure.

Anyway all of this is jjust observable data that we collected. All in all flying as an asym and sailing angles was probably just as good as anything we did all week except thhat cool reaching 3 sail config.

The point is as the OP is discussing an asym for downwind sailing one will have to learn the sail and what works best from a VMG perspective. Most of us on the boat were symetrical spin guys with working knowledge of asym - I had flown and trimmed a giant gennaker/code zero on the benne before but wasn't/am not a symetrical spin expert. I am glad we tried all these configurations as I had personal learning about what to expect and not expect with an asym.

The real key was sailing as deep as we could - i.e. heading directly at the finsih line would seem to be the fastest course. The angle guys would split, go 1/4-1/2 mile laterally and join us dead on at the next mark or line. They went faster on hotter angles, we went more direct.

Crazy game this sailing stuff...

[Cheechako]

Hard to beat the Profurl for reliability, seems you see more of them than any on cruisers. I've had 3 over the years and no issues with any. Dont know the 5T model though.

[barnakiel]

Originally Posted by Ex-Calif

(...) They went faster on hotter angles, we went more direct. (...)

Now in the cruising aspect each skipper can ask themselves if they are more comfortable sailing low and slow or higher and faster. I think cats tend to sail very low in a very comfortable manner. Dead downwind no issue, and a normal kite can be flow between the bows. In a mono, I prefer to sail high and fast - both speed and wave angle tend to add much to comfort. But I am sure there may be vast differences between particular designs.

b.

[Cheechako]

Originally Posted by barnakiel

Now in the cruising aspect each skipper can ask themselves if they are more comfortable sailing low and slow or higher and faster. I think cats tend to sail very low in a very comfortable manner. Dead downwind no issue, and a normal kite can be flow between the bows. In a mono, I prefer to sail high and fast - both speed and wave angle tend to add much to comfort. But I am sure there may be vast differences between particular designs.

b.

I prefer high and fast in monos and in my cat also... well not too high, but enough to keep her moving....

[Lunatic]

Now that makes sense to me