To Furl or not to Furl....that is the question

I've decided to remove the roller furling unit from Cork and to be honest it's an easy decision for me because I've had a very bad experience with roller furling in the past and ever since then I just don't trust them.

This is the first glimpse of Bermuda you'll see when and if you sail there but the picture shows why I will never trust a roller furling unit. If you look closely you can see that the furling unit has no sail on it...as a matter of fact , if you look closer you will notice that it also has no furling line. That's because while in a storm 200 miles west of Bermuda the furling line broke under the strain of the wind on the furled sail. Now this may seem like a "no biggie" ...so the furling line broke. Let me explain what happens when the furling line lets go in a 50 knot wind. All of the sail comes out and pulls the jib sheets completely out to the ends until they stop on the figure eight knots ( called stopper knots) that are now jammed in the fairleads...requiring the sailor to cut the stopper knots to allow the sheets to run free before the flogging sail takes down the entire mast. Then ...as the sheets run free...they wrap themselves around the sail and furler unit and tie themselves in knots that a boy scout would be proud of...which leaves the sailor with the top half of the sail full of wind...while the bottom is tied around the furler. Picture a balloon on a stick in 50 knots of wind....Oh and did I mention that this happens at the worst possible time 3:00am and pitch black , with rain and in 30 foot seas!! To make a long story short we ended up cutting the sheets and the sail off the furling unit and didn't lose the mast or any people overboard, but it took two of us a long time on the pitching bow with waves washing over us.

If this was just a one time incident I would pass it off as bad luck but we had a buddy boat sailing 24 hrs behind us who had the same experience. The owners son Rob, was washed overboard while trying to work on the furler that blew out and luckily he was wearing a harness and was recovered although he was badly shaken

Sooooo I've taken my sails to the sail loft to have good old hanks put on. I've adopted the KISS principal Keep It Simple Stupid. Hanks are easy and the sail comes down whenever you want it down. Release the halyard and the sail falls to the deck.

The Toronto Boat Show just finished up and the store had "Boat Show" pricing still in effect so I got some good deals on boat stuff...

I've purchased a new anchor...a  "Rocna 10" because a good anchor lets you sleep at night and I've heard good things about these anchors. I'll let you know this summer how well it works. I now have 2 anchors a Rocna and a Danforth.

I was looking at replacing the broken tiller pilot  that came with my boat so I picked up a Raymarine ST100 plus tiller pilot as the tiller is already set up for this make and model and I won't have to do any modifications to the boat to install it.

The sailmaker also does canvas work so I ordered a new dodger for Cork. She doesn't have one and it gets pretty warm out on the lake and makes great cover when it's raining or when spray is flying.

It's -20 outside and snowing......I'm sure looking forward to summer!!

See you on the water

Tom
S/V Cork