Roller furling: #1

I shy away from these group efforts, but this month Tillerman's writing project over at Proper Course got me thinking: what is the greatest sailing invention ever?

A couple of things quickly come to mind: aluminum cans, the shackle key, fiberglass, and the Magic Eraser (mmm...a clean waterline). But I'm going to have to go with roller furling.

Now, I understand that for a lot of sailors, who perhaps only have one sail, or sail on a wee little boat with handkerchief sails, roller furling doesn't mean that much. Before I even owned a boat I swore that I would never have this roll up sail, thinking it was for, I don't know, guys who didn't like to get their hands dirty. C'mon, man, get up on that foredeck and handle some sails. Where's the Viking spirit?

And then I got a free boat from Uncle Larry's family - a 23' gem with roller furling. And mine eyes were opened. I really don't know what I was thinking. Silly lubber.

On the off chance that there is someone reading from the 19th Century, roller furling is the gear that rolls the jib in or out on the headstay. Think of it like rolling in and out paper towels. Or t.p.

Roller furling comes in handy when you just want to go for a quick sail after work, when putting up all the sails would simply kill too much daylight; when you want to go sailing and aren't sure of how much wind is out there, or when the wind builds or settles down; or when you're sailing alone and you want to go down and hit the head right quick; or when you're racing and you go around the windward mark and want to shake out a little bit more for the reaching or downwind leg (though using the old, bagged out roller furling sail probably means you have to roll out some jib to catch up to the peloton (forget about the breakaway)).

And another secret bonus of having roller furling is that, at least with the gear we have on the Redwing, a head sail change without being bareheaded (without dropping one sail to put up another) is a real option. Of course, you have to not be using the roller furler as a roller furler to do this - for example, when you're racing. The tube that is over the headstay that the sail goes up on, and rolls up on, has two grooves in it. Simply put the new sail's luff in the unused groove, hoist and peel off the old one. Unfortunately, we don't have two jib halyards, but otherwise we could do sail changes on the fly.

Roller furling also comes in handy during those long day sails when, perhaps, you have been "too much in the sun," or when you're worried that if the "thunder don't get you the lightning will," and you really don't feel like getting up on the foredeck to take down the jib. With roller furling you can sit back during the motor sail toward the slip and with a few quick pulls on the right line have the jib put away. And no docking while stepping all over the jib, either.

We like to bob around in the cove for a bit, put the mainsail away nice and tidy, coil the lines, and then sail back in with just the jib, starting the motor at the last second as we line up for the slip. Mmm...roller furling.