trying to find proper headsail

[rrn]

my roller furling genoa has a luff of 39.5 ft can i use a genoa that is roller furling the luff is say only 34 ft ?

[sandy stone]

Yes but fit a 5.5' pendant at either the tack or the head, so the top swivel of the furler stays at the same height.

[Nicholson58]

Agree with that. If too much free halyard is available you risk twisting it on the forestay.

Here is our #2 chicken Genoa. Note the pennant also runs in the foil. This places the halyard in the right position with relation to the wrap stop on our ProFurl 52. It is certainly easier to add a pennant at the foot but the center of effort will be higher.

[rrn]

so the foil is the part that goes into the furling system ? and can irun the halyard in the furling also to keep it from wrapping around the furling ? the more i learn the more i know i don't know

[Cheechako]

The pendant at the bottom is great for visibility and for keeping it up out of the water spray etc also. My preferred setup is about a 3 ft pendant.

[Nicholson58]

The Foil (head foil) is the device on the forestay with one or two grooves into which the luff cable runs. In our case, it is an aluminum extrusion. The drum at the bottom permits the foil to be rotated on the forestay cable which is fixed and inside. The tack of the jib is attached to a shackle on top of the drum. A line wound on the drum is pulled in order to make the foil rotate and wind up the sail on the foil like a window shade. You can appreciate that the halyard cannot also wrap around the fore stay. For this reason, the head of the sail is attached below a bearing that allows the sail to wind up while the halyard does not. Various forces will attempt to make the halyard twist with the foil. Minimizing the distance from the halyard bearing to the halyard block (pulley) minimize this effect. In the photos below, there is also a metal tang on the top of the bearing. The halyard is attached to the top of the tang. At full hoist, the tang fits into a wrap-stop on the stationary halyard cable. An aft facing notch in the wrap-stop prevents rotation of the halyard around the forestay.

You can see the wrap stop on the top of the forestay in the photos. I hope this helps.

[rrn]

so in essence the shorter the head sail the more likely the lanyard would wrap around the forstay although the tighter or more force applied to the lanyard the less likely and you want a good bearing would help too thank you nicholson 58 that probably saved me lots of frustration of learning the curve sir the pictures too