MacGregorSailors.com

EricM26 wrote:I am very dissappointed with the MacGregor-furnished CDI roller furler and am looking for an alternative. Any recommendations out there? I am constantly frustrated with the line getting jammed in the drum and having to go forward to twist the drum. I like to keep my Genoa attached and often find it difficult to reef in when I have a bit of a wind. Has anyone tried the Harken MKIV Unit 0 ($1165 @ WM) or the MKIV Unit 1 ($1675 @ WM)? Thanks.

OK, is this MacGregor furnished furler a bona fide CDI FF2 furler that everyone is refering to or is it some cheap factory knock-off version that I have heard about before on this board? It seems others are happy with their CDI FF2 version but this poster may not in fact have one, but instead, a factory mock up. Folks may be comparing apples to oranges here.
Anyway their is also a Schaefer Snapfurl CF700 model available out there with a flexible foil for traileing, I have one and am quite happy with it. It acommodates both a jib and genoa easily but keep in mind what Duane said about the line feed angle because it is important. I bought my Schaefer unit for $800.00 and it also works like the harken to control the tightness of the luff with the jib halyard. Nice unit and it is close in price to a CDI.

MacGregor now makes their own furling unit. From what I heard from the dealer, it is not as good as the CDI FF2. Very similar, however.

Ok From someone who has all three I have two CDI furlers on my
I have a mac furler on my jib for my
basicaly the main diff between them both is that the mac furler has an open 5" drum. theCDI furler has a 4" closed drum .
I prefer the open drum as to the closed drum for when you do get a twist in the furling line as does happen from time to time if you do not keep the furling line taught and it is a lot easier to get the twist out on an open drum as to a closed drum with a knotted line jammed inside it !!

These furlers are fine for the basic sailor although the plastic foils are heavier than the Alum foil on the harken 0 unit so they are a little more weight aloft
the harken 0 furler is more than twice the price but you get alot more to play with adj. halyard from the cockpit no distorted foil for a very bad looking sail shape the Alum foil is smaller in dia. also. and has twin slots allowing for a sail change install the sail you want set it then go ahead & remove the other sail no lost speed, also you can fly two head sails off them wing on wing cant do that with the other two furlers

its all a matter of preference just like some guy's go for the bigger & better quality sails, bigger eng.'s
I go for the better quality deck & sail handling hardware also Cutter Rigged Clipper !
I was able to secure my second Harken 0 furler for the same price I paid for my first one two yrs ago not bad Eh !!
just like my yet to be installed aft #7 Lewmar winches I got them for a song 100$ cheaper each than anyone else was selling them & no their not hot or on fire !!! , just cool to the touch
J

John,

Is the Harken aluminum foil prone to damage when the mast is lowered and everything secured for trailering? Not ready to buy yet but I'm itching for a furler upgrade. Also, I wonder how the twin groove system works. Theoretically, one can hoist a second sail before dropping the first one. I just can't picutre that with the halyard swivel. Asuming you have spare halyard, how would you drop the first sail. Swivel can't be lowered with the second sail up. What am I missing? Also, will take #6 luff? How about the part that says you have to cut your forstay to install. Can't see why that would have to be done. Thx. L.

That's really the problem with all the higher end furlers, the aluminum foil and trailering. One wrong bend while raising or lowering and it is toast. You can be as careful as possible, but some day you'll end up kinking it and your expensive furler is now ruined. The plastic foil furler is much more forgiving.

I could see going with the aluminum foil if your boat was always mast up in a slip, but not if you trailer and setup for every trip.

First all if i did damage the Alum foil they come in 7ft sections ! secondly I figure if I smack it really bad the CDI plastic foil would snap or crack & splt as I've seen many do !! & then your looking at a complete new foil .
I've put some pretty good bends into my Alum foil without any problems so far but like everything it does have its limits of abuse !
Leon
you'd have to run a second halyard most racers that do this usualy remove the split furling drum when racing so no furling is involved when flying two head sails wing on wing
My mistake on switching sails what I meant to say is that with two groves you install & prep your next sail, then dowse & lower & then raise your next sail in an instant ! sorry about the confusion their

It takes the #6 luff tape our sails have, No you do not have to cut the forestay if it has a turn buckle I believe , but if you read the manual its explains although I did upsize from the mac 1/8" forstay , I'll be upsizing and getting a new forstay for my new jib harken furling as the original forestay will be sold with the Mac furler as it comes as part of it

Anyway I see W/M has the Harken 0 on sale right now 170$ USD off their reg. price or shop around ! like I do

J

The Harken 0 can be had at Defender for a hair under a boat buck. It looks like a fabulous unit, but proably a no-go for me, due to the 6 inch halyard swivel. Both my headsails are full hoist with about 2 inches of room below the tack when all is tight. Don't want to have these nice sails cut, so probably will stick it out with the CDI. Another option would be to get a Tuff Luff or Harken racing foil and 3rd headsail, probably a 41/2... a bit larger than strom jib, say 50-60 square feet which would give me 150 genny, 105 jib and the heavy weather jib which I would need to get. No furling there. Yet another option I'm considering is keeping the 105 jib on the furler full time and have the genny modified to use a sleeve like the ATN gale sail. This as dacron sleeve which wraps around the furled sail (full luff solid sleeve) Works like a hank-on without the hanks and without dropping the sail from the furler. I'm really liking this idea since the jib is my workhorse, used for majority of my sailing and roller reefs very well due to its luff pad and cut (designed as reefing sail.) Then I can use the genny when conditions are appropriate, quickly drop and stow it if the wind kicks up and unfurl the jib. Would love to get some opinions on this setup. Here is a link to the gale sail: http://www.atninc.com/gale_en.php

Leon

Leon

for about the same money you can buy a storm jib & a harken 435 furler have the sail modified to be fitted for 1/8" seized forestay , now you have a storm sail that can be used as a inner staysail on the furler so on windy days hoist up the storm sail on the harken furler which it stays attached to all the time and can be easily rolled up in a bag just like my drifter on a CDI spinnaker furler shown here
http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j95/m ... 0002-1.jpg
so now go sailing if winds are light fly both jib & inner storm if it gets too windy furl the storm jib if it gets any rougher you can either reef the jib or furl it & unfurl the storm sail all from the comfort of the cockpit

I just had a quote from K/H for this mod to a storm sail i thought it would be the cheaper way to go , but as I already have a K/H storm sail "hank-on" I got a quote from my local sail loft to convert my storm sail for 100$ cheaper so once I bring the boat out of my shop & raise the mast to double check my measurements looks like this will be the way I will go

a cutter rigged clipper she'll be J

I dunno J. I recall asking my sales rep at Quantum about a foil-less furler and he advised against it. Just not the same. No personal experience with this though. As you know, I toyed around with various options. My Quantum jib carries a good shape even when furled to storm size, so I'm not sure how much benefit there is to a storm sail which would run a boat buck if you add the furler; and the more I think about it, I'm realizing that I'm not thrilled about having to rig an inner stay, even a temporary one. Plus this solution does nothing for deploying the genny vs. the mod I'm considering. I'm not planning to buy the gale sail, just to modify my 150 KH Pentex genny to use the same mechanism as the gale sail. My biggest concern is ware on the furled jib. ATN claims there would be none i.e. large area of dacron riding over dacron. Seems sound but I'm not 100% convinced. As for flying multiple headsails, I'll leave that to you and Scott The way I see it, if the wind is too light for the 150 genny, it's probably time to run the iron sail. Or perhaps the spinnaker if the point of sail allows. I do want to explore further so I will start a new thread, rather than taking this one on a tangent.... not that this never happened before

Leon

Highlander wrote: It takes the #6 luff tape our sails have, No you do not have to cut the forestay if it has a turn buckle I believe , but if you read the manual its explains although I did upsize from the mac 1/8" forstay , I'll be upsizing and getting a new forstay for my new jib harken furling as the original forestay will be sold with the Mac furler as it comes as part of it
Anyway I see W/M has the Harken 0 on sale right now 170$ USD off their reg. price or shop around ! like I do

J

John,
Since you are upsizing your forestay you may also wish to consider upsizing the turnbuckle from the 1/4 to a 5/16 as well. It is much more robust than the oem one and it fits just fine into my Schaefer drum. Another cost to think about but worth it for the peace of mind.

Browsing through the West Marine Sailing catalog that arrived yesterday I see that Schaefer has a plastic foil unit. Looks like either the $669.00 SnapFurl CF-500 or $1,199.00 SnapFurl CF-700 would work on our boats. They claim it was rated a "Best Buy" by Practical Sailor magazine. Might be worth a look. By the picture it looks to be a better made unit than the CDI.

http://www.furling.com/snapfurl.html

Our furlerline used to get jammed up all of the time until we attached a small block to the pulpit so the furling line goes right into the middle of the drum. We don't even use the eye on deck. It works perfectly now!

See (inferior quality) photo:

http://picasaweb.google.com/verena.kell ... 0922723234

delevi wrote:I dunno J. I recall asking my sales rep at Quantum about a foil-less furler and he advised against it. Just not the same. No personal experience with this though. As you know, I toyed around with various options. My Quantum jib carries a good shape even when furled to storm size, so I'm not sure how much benefit there is to a storm sail which would run a boat buck if you add the furler; and the more I think about it, I'm realizing that I'm not thrilled about having to rig an inner stay, even a temporary one. Plus this solution does nothing for deploying the genny vs. the mod I'm considering. I'm not planning to buy the gale sail, just to modify my 150 KH Pentex genny to use the same mechanism as the gale sail. My biggest concern is ware on the furled jib. ATN claims there would be none i.e. large area of dacron riding over dacron. Seems sound but I'm not 100% convinced. As for flying multiple headsails, I'll leave that to you and Scott The way I see it, if the wind is too light for the 150 genny, it's probably time to run the iron sail. Or perhaps the spinnaker if the point of sail allows. I do want to explore further so I will start a new thread, rather than taking this one on a tangent.... not that this never happened before

Leon

well Leon

Ive used them before on other boats & had no problem but if you turn into the wind a liitle just before furling it makes it easier to furl but their used on code zero's & the like so works for them my mod for storm sail , harken 435 & seized forestay is less than 600$ so i'm counting my beens & cashing in my bags of rice
I've got a Drifter on a CDI spinnaker furler that can fly off the end of the 4ft bowsprit & a cruising spinnaker to fly off another 6ft extension so I'm game for all kinds of weather


J

I figure if I smack it really bad the CDI plastic foil would snap or crack & splt as I've seen many do !!

Ive never heard of these breaking except for abuse....and IIRC CDI stands behind them with a 6 year warranty almost unlimited.

Ive never heard of these breaking except for abuse....

My original foil broke. Split down the middle. CDI did replace it under warranty. No problems there.

As for code 0, drifter etc, I'm sure such a setup is fine, but for sailing on a beat in a good breeze??? I would think not so good. John, you carry more sails than a 40 foot race boat And you can fly them all at the same time, which the 40 footer can't do.

Will probably keep things simple for now.