My I-20 is not currently set up for a roller furler, but I have one at my disposal (a good harken one), should I put it on there? I don't plan on having it one there during the Tybee, but other than that, any thoughts?
Trey

No.
:P

It is just one more thing to do. Down wind under spi, the jib should be soft set.

It is great when the boat is on the beach..

I always had roller furling on my H boats, when the wind is honkin and you think you might want to furl it is too late, it is very difficult to furl when it has pressure on it.

It's best to head down wind before trying to furl the jib in a blow.

I agree, no. I'm taking mine off the F18 as soon as it's legal to do so.

Ding

Go FULL POWER or don't go at all.

The cost of having a different forestay rig does not meet the minimum Thaddeus cost/benefit ratio formulation.

Plus, I've seen those drums blow up before, it aint purty.

For long-distance races, out on the ocean, where you never know when you are going to run into bad weather, isn't it a good idea to be able to quickly and easily reduce sail?

I've got one on my I-20, and have grown to see its usefulness. I roll it up between races to keep it from flogging (I don't have an auto-tacker), while on the beach, etc. I only rolled it up once during a race, and that was after I snapped a spreader.

If I were doing the Tybee and/or had ground crew, I would be good enough to not use the roller furler.

Ding - just how much bigger is the non-furling I-20 or F18 jib?

What does that mean? When Mother Nature strikes, what difference does it make how "good" you are or whether you have ground crew?

If I was good enough to do the Tybee, I would be able to somehow control the sail when "the Fury" happens upon our craft. I've seen Castrol and others handle some insane S*$% and pull away while we're switching to "survival sail" mode.

There isn't a difference. As far as I know it's the same jib regardless if you have fuler installed or not.

I don't use the fuler on the 18 because I have a halyard tensioner installed.

When I raced the Dart Hawk with furler, I found that it was very handy to be able to furl coming into the beach, and not to have the jib floging while sitting between races.
But, I found that, if hit by a squall, by the time I had decided that I should get rid of some sail area, it was too late to roll the jib. If I sat almost head to wind and let the cat jog along, the jib would not roll neatly and floged like crazy. If I had tried to head down wind to furl, I would have been over in the conditions I am talking about.
I am now sailing the Spitfire and do not miss the furling jib.

The requirement is that the furler be functional and not 'just there'. However, I have the same through the furler jib uphaul setup (that I copied from your boat) and it works fine and doesn't inhibit furling.

David is right, the non-furling F18 jib will be the same size but will also be optional with full length battens...which haven't proven to be an advantage yet. This F18 rule change is slated to take place around 2006/2007.

Why would you wait to get hit before you reduce sail? If all these people who race around the world used that philosophy, nobody would ever make it.

Because we're men Mary! Manly Men! There aint no stinking dandies driving multihulls! Who wants to be the first to roll up their jib? That would be like raising your hand in a crowded room and proclaiming that you have the smallest pee pee.

All these years Mary and you still don't get us.

Ding

All these years and I still worry about you guys.

Ding said it, but I'll add to it. We are talking about racing small cats which can be righted easily and usually have rescue craft in attendance.
If you are racing and you see some extra wind coming, you hope that it won't be too strong. You don't ease your mainsheet and stop the boat to roll your jib - just in case ! (You have to ease the mainsheet to take the tension off the forestay to roll the jib). As I said, if the wind is too strong to continue racing, it is too strong to allow the jib to be furled properly. The Hawk was easy to depower, so I am talking of wind speeds well above force 6.

Like I said in the beginning of the thread,, by the time you are worried about the weather, it is too late. It is not as if you have radar and sonar and intrafreakinnet to tell you exactly when the heavy stuff is gonna clobber yer butt, ride it out. I remember going out for a nice cruise on my H-21 (with furler) on a nice day when all of the sudden it got snotty. The crew trid to furl the jib (with the tiny little halyard) and could only get a couple of turns on it. We ended up releasing it and setting it with the barber hauler all the way out until the squall passed. There was no way I was going to head downwind just to furl the jib. Bottom line, for recreation, excelent, for racing, no.

My 2 cents.
ps for those of you that have tried to furl in 20+, you know the deal.

I'll offer a dissenting opinion...

We sail high-powered boats in sometimes very crappy conditions - I believe it is a major failing that we cannot reduce sail appropriately. Yes, we can flatten and do all sorts of things to de-power, but sometimes I think the boats would be faster if the sailplan were reduced and the sails working instead of flogging. They would certainly be safer.

We don't have weather instruments, but we need to aware of the weather.

Our current design gear for roller furling is way out of date. You can't furler easily unless going downwind, and you can't adjust luff tension. Instead of accepting this and not furling when we should, we take the gear off the boat. Isn't it time for a new design?

In this past year's C-100, Alec and I didn't know the true extent of the conditions on the Bay, so elected to start with the jib furled. What a great decision. Boats got tossed when we stayed under control. When we decided to roll it out to power out through some waves, the jib tore and needed to be rolled back up, and we went downwind in some real steep stuff to roll it up. We ended up smoking down the Bay on a close reach, double-trapped with fire-hose spray as a 6.0 uni. When the wind dropped out later, we were able to roll it back out (and jury rig a repair).

I've not done the Worrell or Tybee or Atlantic 1000. I have done the NE-100 and the C-100, and I've seen the Bay whip up in no time. I've very much enjoyed being able to roll the jib on my 18 to help with assisting other boats or staying in control when the storms come. I hate the fact that my 6.0 doesn't currently have furling...

Anyway, that's my opinion. I'm looking forward to a properly designed furler rig to come out! And when I have the chance, I'll add furling to my 6.0 for distance racing, and maybe for the Tuesday nights. If I was doing a serious bouys race, I'd probably leave it off, but that would be the only time.