Winch on furling line?

[Dale Tanski]

Has anybody installed a dedicated winch on their headsail furling line?  It is disturbing the load on the furling line when the wind pipes up and the head sail is all the way out.  Often I use the primary winch but that becomes problematic when it is the one loaded and I am having trouble furling the headsail.  I was thinking about installing a small winch dedicated to the task of retrieving the headsail.  Have you done it and if so any feedback and suggestions...

Dale

[PeteW]

Dale,
I've always been a hank-on sailor and not completely by choice. But I have sailed a few other boats with roller-snarling head sails. This last week I crewed on  a 32' Ericson. The owner had just installed a new head sail from Hyde. We got out on a beam reach and it quickly became obvious to me that the 150 was too much sail for the wind that day and I needed to reef the head sail to avoid a potential knock down. Fortunately this boat had the furling line routed through a snatch block further aft of the jam cleat where it could be furled using a spare winch on the cabin roof. Even with some luffing of the jib, winching the roller line was the only way I could reef the head sail without heading up into the wind. A detail I was having trouble communicating to the novice skipper of the Ericson at that moment.

I was concerned that the amount of force required to reef in these conditions could tweak the head foil.

Pete

[SailingSeaDragon]

Dale

I installed two (2) self tailing lewmar 16 aft of the
primaries for that purpose. One for the headsail
furler and one for the staysail furler. Very nice addition!
I also use them for my preventer, a line from the boom
forward around the mid-ship cleat and back to the aft
winch.

http://www.sailingseadragon.com/Winches.htm

Garner

[Leo]

Garner,

I see on your site that your installing new port lights. It was one the best things we did to SOL. No leaks and they look really great! The only down side with the older bronze ports is the bug screens are a joke, they don't fit. Oh well another project when I figure out how to do it.


Lennie