Preview: How to Furl A Sail, Part 1 – Marconi Rig on a Concordia Yawl

10 Responses So Far to “How to Furl A Sail, Part 1 – Marconi Rig on a Concordia Yawl”

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  Hugh (Jock) Beebe says:

  A couple of comments on seeing your ideas about furling a sail.

  1. Those of us who grew up sailing on boats with cotton sails learned the hard way about how to furl a sail that would protect it from the awful water-stimulated mildew if we did a poor job of furling. Especially for a boat fitted with expensive sails made of Egyptian cotton, only a “harbor furl,” as it was called, would do. Furling illustrated in the nice video of Mr. Medlowitz’s elegant Concordia yawl shows a method that stuffs the cloth being compressed into chaotic folds. If the final outside wrapping portion of the sail is smooth, tightly applied and completely encircles the remainder of the sail, it works well and protects.

  2. However today there are additional factors to consider including, long battens, sometimes fully extending to the leech, heavy elaborate batten pockets with stout Velcro and elastic shock absorbers and sometimes heavier synthetic sail materials that are difficult to force into a roll.

  3. Also many sailmakers these days advocate a return to constructing mainsails that are loose footed because of the added control of sail shape this rig permits. However, this makes the furling method employed by sailors Medlowitz and Bray a great deal harder. The “sausage making” method shown in the video is much easier to accomplish with a sail that has its foot attached to the boom on a full length track.

  I sail an 84 year old Herreshoff design that L. Francis had the wisdom to specify as having a large, loose footed mainsail. But the sail is built with modern technology and has hefty long battens as described above. By far the easiest and most effective way of accomplishing a proper furl with a loose footed mainsail is to lay the sail back and forth in narrow folds across the boom arranged athwartship so that the battens come to rest on top of the boom and all the sail cloth is smooth throughout without hard creases.

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  David Tew says:

  The Pardeys had an interesting sail cover variation on their Taleisin cutter. The forward end of the canvas cover secured around and along the luff’s sail slides only leaving quicker access to the mast, halyards and any winches for adjustments or other uses.

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  Jamie Carter says:

  Very nice video, and a beautiful boat!

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  C.B. Strohmeier says:

  Another good idea after the sail is furled is to bring your lazy jacks forward to either a winch or cleat on the mast. Then put your cover on. That way when you do put your sail up, the battens won’t get caught in the lines. Especially good for full battened sails. Then once the sail is hoisted, up go the lazy jacks.

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  Jim Thomson says:

  Excellent. Would be good to see a video on the reefing set up on ‘Starlight’.

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  Dick Tatlock says:

  My step Grandpappy had his Skipper Cap’n Hardy always slack the outhaul before furling…I suppose to combat stretch in the foot of Java’s main.

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  John Hughes says:

  Depending on whether your track-slides have any friction in them or not, each horizontal strip of the sail may have come down horizontal, or the aft end may have “sagged” as the sail dropped. When I furl a sail like this one, after dropping, my first step is therefore to walk my hands along the leech, tugging firmly aft every 2 feet or so. That’s even more important on a gaff rig, I find. It’s pretty simple to do it in the course of preparing to make the sausage roll.

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  Eigil Rothe says:

  The other reason for spending so much effort on pulling the sail aft is to make sure the battens align parallel to the boom and have enough padding from the sail so they are not “kinked” if you are using tie stops.
  I love the Concordia yawls. They are timeless and so beautiful.

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  michele del monaco says:

  Concordia Yawl, my love…

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  James Jones says:

  Excellent! (I’m definitely going to copy the bungee idea.)