Im just wondering if any of you racers , use furling spinnakers.
My own experience is limited to the last 2 races in the last month.
All i can say is, it doesnt seem to be as efficient as just dropping the kite and pulling it in the forward hatch and vice versa.
The first time we used it, the torsion line wasnt tight enough(too long) so it was shortened for the last race.
it seemed to work ok but it took alot of winding to get the furl started.
As im on the foredeck doing this stuff, i notice certain things.
Firstly the rope around the drum is only 8mm. This is the rope you need to wind like mad to start the furl and then furl the kite in. your hands slip through it and keeping traction on the furl is difficult.
1 thing that happened last week was we must have over wound the drum because we ended up with twists in the torsion line in 2 directions.
This meant we couldnt sort this out onboard and this sail was rooted til it was off the boat, in a loft. I tried down below to untwist it whilst we were tacking back up and i was getting close but the twist was so bad and we had deployed another furling spinnaker ready for the next downward leg.

In theory, this system could work really well, but when things go wrong with them, they really go wrong. I mean the first day we tried it, it was 25knots and we had a major broach. the front of the bow was under for a second. we couldnt get it furled as the rope around the drum was caught. in our case on this boat the furling drum gets extruded out from the bow on a pole about 5 feet so the sail maker who was aboard and pretty light, scaled out there to untangle it. We nearly lost him in the drink cause this is when the broach happened.
Is it worth it?

Is a sock a better option?

Look at the Harken Reflex Furlers.

They have a new plastic covered s/s wire that twists the top as soon as you start furling the bottom, no more issues.

From all reports of people that have them, they work amazingly well.

PhoenixStar said..
Had one on a 47 ft cat, used a Profurl wheel with the endless rope around a maxwell pot hauler. Hoist it, roll it out then slacken the halyard a bit till it got the right shape. Tread on the foot switch to put it away. easy single handed and with the halyard taunt it assumed a shape that let me sail down to 60 degrees apparent. We used a pair of torsion resistant luff ropes.

Well that sounds awesome! but this is hydraulic?
Our one is me being the hydraulics...
i think it has potential but needs some getting used to and set up.