Headsail Furlers for Trailersailers

A detailed look at the various solutions available to the trailersailor

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by Jerry Culik

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Most trailersailers with stayed masts are rigged with either hanked-on jibs or a roller-furling genoa. A hanked-on jib is straight-forward to rig and relatively low cost to replace. And it makes raising and lowering the mast easy—there’s no sail or furler to contend with. But dowsing a hanked-on jib, especially from the cockpit, can be challenging, particularly when the wind pipes up. One solution is to use a downhaul led to the cockpit to depower and douse the jib without going up on the foredeck in tough conditions (see, for example, Install a Double Duty Headsail Downhaul). But whenever I’ve tried it, my sail usually ends up tangled up on the deck and in the water. And after I’ve stuffed the sail down into the cabin to clear the mess, it always needed to be completely rerigged.

A much neater solution is a furling jib, which is rolled up and out of the way when not needed. But besides the cost of the additional gear and the complications with trailering with the furler and the sail hanging over the bow, managing a jammed furler in windy conditions—a potentially disastrous situation—has always caused me to blink before converting to a furling headsail. However, once I read Chuck Pierce’s discussion of the Llungstrom downwind jib recently reposted online at Small Craft Advisor, I’m even more interested in investigating all of the options to add a furling headsail to my West Wight Potter 15.

Reefing Furlers

Many “flexible foil” furlers for both small and large boats are made by Cruising Design International (aka CDI) although there are many other manufacturers. Defender, for example, sells furlers from Facnor, Harken, Karver, Schaefer and Profurl; and Fisheries Supplies has a similar list. West Marine sells mostly Harken furlers; and CDI sells their furlers through a local dealer network. To provide some idea of costs, the smallest Harken reefing furler (designated ”Unit 0 MKIV” and rated for boats up to 30 feet with headstays of less than 38 feet) lists for $2,900 at West Marine. In contrast, Schaefer’s SnapFurl CF-500, which is spec’d for trailerable boats up to 24 feet and headstays of less than 31 feet, sells for an even $1,000. Both Harken and Schaefer furlers come with high-tech Torlon ball bearings that minimize jamming. The smallest CDI Flexible Furler (Model FF-1) is spec’d for a ⅛” headstay that is less than 21 feet in length and sells for $605 from Precision Sails. While Torlon bearings will bump the FF-1 price up to $730, that’s still less than the competition, which is why CDI is probably the most common reefing furler found on trailersailers.

Ken Billing, aka the “$tingy Sailor,” wrote an excellent online tutorial about reefing furlers. He describes how they are designed and operate, tips on installation – and why he transitioned from critic to advocate. Basically, a light line wound onto a drum rotates a thin metal or plastic extrusion that is part of the boat's forestay. The extrusion has a slot for a #5 or #6 continuous support tape that is sewn onto the luff of the sail, replacing the clips typically used for hanked-on jibs. Rotating the drum winds the sail up on the extrusion to reef it, or to completely furl it. The sail is usually constructed with a sacrificial edge (usually made of UV-blocking Sunbrella or WeatherMAX fabric) that protects the sail from sunlight damage when it’s furled up.