Converting a Hank On Sail to a Furling

  The Cap'n has decided that instead of hanking on the Genoa, we are going to go with a Furler. With the 'hanked' on Genoa, we have to put it on every time we want to use it. And it lays on the deck while at anchor, so when we pull the anchor up, it gets muddy, and it takes up most of the fore deck. 
  It is a pretty good project for the Cap'n. We started by having the Cap'n go up the mast. We just so happened to have some sailing friends come to spend a few days here at the Benicia Marina, in their boat 'Fast Dash', so we got them to assist in the adventure. It was a pretty fun afternoon. We ordered the furler, and after a month of back order phone calls, it showed up. The Cap'n went to work measuring, and making sure we had the right hardware to do the job.
    The Cap'n patiently waited for a calm day to get started. After more measuring  and cutting, he fed the tube up the forestay. there are fittings that go inside the tube to connect the tubes, and this is not something you can do ahead of time, it has to be done while the tube is going up. The bale is a little bit oversized, but so is everything else, so it fits right together. It went up pretty easy, the Cap'n wants it to sit where it is in the pic, but we have to wait on a back ordered turnbuckle cover that will allow the furler to sit lower on the stay, so he has to fix up the brackets to do for now. 
  The next thing we need to do is fix the Genoa to be a furled sail, instead of Hanked on. A 'hanked' on sail, means it has rings on it, to attach it to the sail to the forestay with spring loaded clips called Hanks. A furler rolls the Genoa up on the forestay, and keeps the deck open for maneuvering. So in order to convert the Genoa to the furler, we have already cut off the forward edge (Leech)that has the rings on it, and now we need to sew the sail and sacrificial Sunbrella. We will be using the Sunbrella fabric to protect the sail on the edge when it is furled. To attach the sail to the furler foils, we are using Continuous Support Tape to feed into the tube track of the furler. That will extend almost the full length of the sail, and when it is completely furled, the sail will turn inside the Sunbrella fabric. That is called , sacrificial fabric.

  The furler housing was coming down short of where the Cap'n wanted it to be. The brackets that attached to the bowsprit were almost 2" shy, so he bolted extensions on.
  We now have some more grunt work that needs to be done to get it into place, Genoa and all the trimmings. Good thing we have the sewing machine, this just saved us a couple of grands. The bottom picture shows the forward sail hanked on.
bunkmate