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I lost the jib halyard shackle on my CDI furler and the anchor pin dropped down into the furler. Can I undo the Luff support pin and lift the unit up safely or do I need to undo the forestay and then take the unit apart?

carl, i m not really shure what happened to you and where your pin actually is, but you can pull this pin out which holds the furler drum in place, and slide the whole thing upward. this allows you to control the forestay and turnbuckle and hopefully to recover the lost item. iof you need furthert information you can download the maual on the cdi website: http://www.sailcdi.com/

What anchor pin? I can't picture where in the furler you've lost anything. The drum?

I've taken out the support pin and lifted the drum a number of times for access to the turnbuckle and the drum bearing. I've found it nearly impossible to do with the sail furled, quite easy with the sail unfurled, so wait for a time with fairly low winds.

Thanks for the help. I'll do it on a calm day. FYI..there are two shackles that the jib furler and the foot of the sail are tied to. The shackles (when attached to the anchor pins) prevent them from falling into the drum area. The shackle for my genoa halyard came loose and the anchor pin must have fallen into the drum area. Hopefully it doesn't fall into the water when I raise the drum.

Make sure you uncleat your furling line before you pull the pin and pull the drum up. I once had a finger get stuck in the drum as the top part clamped down on it. Fortunately, I had someone there to help me, or I would have lost the finger. It was stuck in there for about 30 seconds of excruciating pain! Getting the pin back in place is a royal PITA, because you have to apply a lot of downward pressure on the top of the drum. It is best if you have a helper. If you are on your own, you may need to step down on it with your foot to force it down long enough to stick the pin back in. Good luck.

Leon

Leon, if you unfurl the sail and untie the tack line from the lower shackle, it only takes a few pounds of effort to slide the luff up a fraction on the forestay (just enough to get the weight off the pin) and pull the pin. It then takes only a few pounds of effort to slide the drum up on the luff and lift the whole business up for access to the turnbuckle or whatever. Once you've dropped the drum back into place, if the plastic bearing is misaligned, the drum won't drop back fully into the outer cover. Lift it up and adjust the bearing (big plastic washer) until the drum drops in easily. It then only takes a a few pounds of force to lift the luff up and slip the pin back in. If you have to stand on the drum, something's wrong.

It then only takes a a few pounds of force to lift the luff up and slip the pin back in. If you have to stand on the drum, something's wrong.

Chip,

When I did this, my halyard/tack line was shackled. Perhaps that's why it took so much effort to lift the luff. I just wanted access to the turnbuckle to shorten the forestay to reduce mast rake. Now I have the halard and tack line very tight. I did this with the shacles attached, using a trucker's hitch on the lines. Wouldn't want to take those babies out now. I do have better sail shape though. The finger deal was unrelated. It was when I only had the boat for about a month and didn't fully understand the furler. That thing played venus-fly-trap on my finger that day, with the furling line cleated, trying to attach the forestay. The furler came up from the drum and then snaped down on my finger. I wasn't able to pull it up with one hand, while balancing on the trailer, with the other hand incapacitated. Sure don't want anyone else to have that experience, thus the words of caution.

Leon

This is funny now. Last fall after I tightened the turnbuckle. I could't get the pin back in. I drilled a hole thru the grey luff plastic, and stuck the pin back in. This year,I tightened the turnbuckle again, and again I could't find my old hole. Get out the drill, and make another hole. So maybe there isn't a hole in there, to begin with. Does the end of the grey plastic luff thing just sit on that pin? Maybe I just have to slide the luff up more on the forestay. Right? Please answer someone. Please.

There is no hole in the luff. Except for yours, which apparently now has two holes.

The luff rests on top of the pin.

You have to pull the luff up quite a bit to expose the hole for the pin. When you put the pin in, the luff sits on top of it. As Chip said, the luff doesn't have a hole.

jim nolan wrote:This is funny now. Last fall after I tightened the turnbuckle. I could't get the pin back in. I drilled a hole thru the grey luff plastic, and stuck the pin back in. This year,I tightened the turnbuckle again, and again I could't find my old hole. ...

Clarifying terminology a bit, it's a grey (or gray) plastic foil, not luff. It is drilled so it can be pinned into the drum shaft (at least mine is). The hole thru the foil might disappear if the foil is sitting a bit lower into the drum. OR, perhaps it's sitting slightly higher because a Pin or other small part has fallen into the drum shaft. I guess the foil might also have been turned by 180 degrees (fore-to-aft), but you'd need to completely reverse the halyard & sail during reassembly.

Thanks Boys, I think I got it now. Jim Nolan

Clarifying terminology a bit, it's a grey (or gray) plastic foil, not luff. It is drilled so it can be pinned into the drum shaft (at least mine is).

You're "clarifying" is incorrect. You can describe it as a plastic foil if you want; that's certainly what it is. But the manufacturer, CDI, calls it a luff.

And the diagram in the manual plainly shows the luff (part A) resting on top of the luff support pin (their terminology, part C), not with a hole passing through it.