Simple Roller Reefing

[John Monroe]

I finished my poly roller reefing jib sail and I put more belly in it then I like, but the roller reefing works and is really cheap and easy to make. I bought a plastic ele. conduit pipe 10 feet long 1.056 od $4. Three plastic end caps about $2 and two metal pipe clamps about $3. And rope I already had. I sawed the conduit into two 5 feet pieces and they fit together and come apart as shown in the middle picture,,so I can break them down for storage in the boat. I drilled a 5/16" hole in the three end caps to take a 1/4" rope. The roll up rope is only duck taped on but will be fitted into a drilled hole later. The wind up rope wound up into a perfect roll by itself. It was one of those project where every thing some together without a bunch of problems.

John

[Romainpek]

Interesting... so there is no elastic or spring to provide tension when rolling it up again ?

[John Monroe]

No springs. To roll it up with tension for a tight roll, you uncleat the rolling rope and as you pull on the rolling rope you hold one of the jib ropes in you hand for tension. If you didn't hold the jib rope it still rolls up but more loosely. Then re-cleat the rolling rope to hold the jib in place.

John

[John Monroe]

This was my second shakedown cruse in the last two weeks, and I added my roller reefing poly tarp jib that now makes my total sail area approximately 60 sq ft with the added jib plus the main. I tried it out yesterday in winds ranging from 10 to 20 with gust to 25 mph. I was really happy with the results as compared to the terrible blue poly sail setup I had last year. I put considerable rounding on the leach and foot plus two darts that made a lot of camber belly in the jib. I thought I had too much belly until I tried it out on the water and it seemed just right. I had been concerned about the Folbot ama pontoons digging into waves but found out I had them on backwards. Installed correctly they kept their front nose high out of the water and the harder I pushed the boat the higher the amas lifted the front nose. I tried to see just how far I could drive the ama under water in some strong winds. The ama tilted up about 45 degrees and I drove the back of the ama under water enough to flow water over the aka cross bar, but that still left more then half of the ama pontoon above water. So I feel the Folbot amas are pretty safe and can take a lot.

I was hoping the boat could sail 40 degrees off the wind but it really surprised me. I would bring the boat directly into the wind, check my compass and veer off. I can sail 30 degrees off wind. I checked this several times to allow for wind shift but it was always the same. This has to be the combination of the jib, the foil shaped long leeboard and the large foil shaped rudder.

I had a 4000-acre lake all to myself along with two fishing boats I saw. A special day.

John

[Alm]

I would bring the boat directly into the wind, check my compass and veer off. I can sail 30 degrees off wind. I checked this several times to allow for wind shift but it was always the same. This has to be the combination of the jib, the foil shaped long leeboard and the large foil shaped rudder.

... Plus, your sail area. 60 sf is a lot! My best result with 32 sf sail was 35-37 degrees, and under quite artificial conditions (8-10 knots, no waves, almost flat water behind a low shoreline), and the boat stalled at this angle unless I tacked through the wind immediately.
Folbot amas are so-so for upwind. They have sufficient volume to support the tilted boat, but they don't glide well due to their bulbous shape, and shaky attachment system of these consoles doesn't make it better either. Balogh amas would've improved your upwind performance (speed or angle, or both), but at that sail area perhaps very little, may be you wouldn't even notice. There are some sailing canoes in my area. With large sail area people sail them at impressive speeds and angles with home-made outriggers (normally - just one outrigger, i.e. on one side) that are nothing more than a piece of thick pipe from Home Depot with plugs at the ends; talk about hydrodynamics of amas...

[John Monroe]

Hi Alm,


The sail sq ft size that I have is bigger then most use with the batwing and the added jib but I was used to sailing a lightweight cat for many years that carried around 135 sq ft of sail to 112 lbs of weight. I don't think I would have been happy with anything less. I can feel the Folbot AMA killing speed but I like it for now. I'm waiting for the cold weather to break so I can do more tests on the boat. I want to check speeds with a GPS with the jib in different reefing sizes. Sailboy on the Folbot forum thought my mast would flex too much with the jib that it would cause distortion in the main and kill speed but I don't think I noticed that. If you remember my mast is really double walled with the insert tubes butting into one another, which would make it stiffer, compared to the Balogh mast.

Making sails was so much fun that I am checking out Crab-Claw and Polynesian sails to possibly make.

John

[John Monroe]

I went for my third shakedown cruse yesterday using a GPS for testing my poly tarp sails for speeds in modest winds of 10 to 20 mph. My best speed with just the main was 4.5 mph. The main and jib together was 4.2 mph and sailing with the jib alone was 3.5 mph. The jib has a nice camber in it due to the generous rounding of the luff and foot plus two darts sewed in and looks nice. I wonder about my main though. It looks too flat and the only camber was produced by some of the very little rounding of the luff and foot.

With the jib added along with the main sail I really didn’t see any speed increase so perhaps I was getting some distortion of the mast causing the main sail to loose some efficiency as has been suggested to me.


I sailed on all points including close to the wind with just the roller reefing 18 sq ft jib with my best speed 3.5 mph in moderate winds. I saw a picture of a roughly 40 foot sail boat with an A frame mast at the stern raked forward and a huge roller reefing jig/genoa as the only sail for the boat. What a simple and easy controllable sail setup. I don't know if there is any downside to it but with my jib sailing last time out I don't see it.

I bought a 40 sq ft Hobie surfboard sail from e-bay, (I don’t have it yet) that doesn’t have the sail wing shape of today’s sailboard sails but should be ok for my needs. Only $19, which is cheaper that I could have made a sail from polytarp. We’ll see how it works.

John