With all the recent inquiries about roller furling lately I thought I'd do a safety tip on roller furling. Then last weekend when I was down at the dock I saw a boat that had troubles with the furling coming undone. When sailing with roller furling, keeping the lines all reasonably tight when rolling or unrolling the sail is critical! If you unfurl your jib by simply pulling one of the sheets and do not keep proper tension on the furling line you will be in for a world of hurt! If your furling line is loosely wrapped around the drum, when you go to furl the sail the line will simply bind up in a big knot! Suddenly you may find yourself needing to put that big jib away and you simply can not! Now you must have someone take the helm while you go lay on the bow trying to un tangle the mess all the while swearing you'll never have another furler! All this when the problem is not likely the furler but simple miss use! Yup! Hmm, how to describe what happens. Picture this, you are fishing and have a salmon pole with a trolling reel. You cast your line . . . . . and much to your dismay you now have a rats nest instead of a reel with fishing line. Ever do that or see it done? Well, that is basically what happens to the furler. Or maybe you don't fish. Every fly a kite? Ever wind the string loosely on the spool? Only to later try and fly the kite again but the string on the spool just seems to bind and make a knot? All this happenes because the loosly wound furling line, fishing line, kite string, or whatever has so much SPACE between each loop. When you try to unroll the line under tension, all the line collapses on itself instead of unrolling nicely!!! For those with furling main sails, SAME THING! When someone comes to you and claims furlers are dangerous and can get you into trouble . . . . . . .call BS. Teach them how to PROPERLY unfurl the sail!
Now, this is all good and fine but what about FURLING the sail? That is when you put the sail away. SAME THING! Keep some tension on the jib sheets. You'll have to experiment as to how much. IF the wind is howling, maybe that in itself is enough. When there is no wind and the sail hangs then you MUST pull the jib sheets and keep tension on the sail while furling it up! This will furl your sail nice and evenly without space in it. The sail will look clean and crisp on the furler. Once the sail is furled, don't stop there. Take four or five more turns on the furler while holding your jib sheets snug. What happens is the sail will furl tight, the jib sheets will wrap around the sail effectively holding it in place, and will keep the lines looking tidy! Now CLEAT OFF the jib sheets! Do NOT just let them hang! They can come loose!
You do NOT want your sail to look like this because it came loose at the dock!!
Question:
You are motoring down a clearly marked channel or river. You are following the outbound tide in hopes of getting a push so you can get more sailing time in! You see a sailboat tacking back and forth across the channel.
Who is the "stand on" vessel?
