- [Instructor] Welcome to the Inspire and Learn series.
We are TMG, a multi-award winning dealership in Australia
specialising in catamarans.
Join us as our expert team teach you
all about anchoring, docking, rigging, sail trim,
maintenance and so much more so you can build confidence
in your catamaran handling ability.
In this episode,
we teach you how to furl away your head sail.
Enjoy.
- Hello, and welcome back to another
Inspire and Learn episode.
My name is Joe Fox from TMG.
Today yet again, we're going back to basics.
We are going to look at how to safely furl your jib.
So take it from the position have here
to neatly stowed wrapped around the forestay
for marina mode.
We're gonna talk through easing the sheet
and pulling on the furling line
in order to furl this around the forestay.
Come with me and I'll show you how.
So in another episode that we've done recently,
we looked at unfurling the sail.
So the opposite action of what we're going do.
By the way, the link is below
if you'd like to watch that first,
using that knowledge we're going to do the reverse.
So in order to furl the jib,
we'll pull on the furling line, which as discussed before
is this line here.
Simultaneously, we're going to ease out on the sheet,
allowing the sail to move forward as the furling line
wraps it around the forestay.
Now it's important,
you can do this in any wind angle really,
best not to do it head to wind
because as I mentioned before, the sail will become a flag,
it will be flapping making lots of noise
potentially damaging the sail as well.
So you can do this when you're sailing
on kind with any angle, as long as you're not head to wind.
So in order to pull on the furling line,
if it's light wind, like it is today,
you can pull on it by hand.
If you need more power or there is stronger wind,
you can run it to a spinnaker winch that we have here.
If you do not have a spinnaker winch fitted
in a location like the on the Lagoon 42,
you can run this furling line all the way
up to the electric wind.
Now for demonstration purposes, I'm just gonna pull it
by hand because we're in such light wind at the moment.
Now, before we pull on the furling line to put away the sail
we need to ease off the jib sheet.
Now, if we're sailing along in the lot of wind,
there'll be a lot of pressure on this.
So safely opening the clutch with the winch loaded,
we're then easing off and letting out the sheet
as we pull in on the furling line.
On a day like today and I'm on my own bear in mind,
so I'm gonna do this slightly differently.
I'm gonna take off nearly all the turns.
The sail go out slightly, and then I can run down
to the furling line and pull that by hand.
So two people certainly makes this easier.
If you do want to run this up to the helm station,
you can do it with one person
but it's always nice to get your guests involved
so that they don't get too much of a free ride.
(upbeat music)
So from this position on the back of the boat,
I can actually see the sail going around the forestay.
And I can see now that it's just fully wrapped up.
So I use the locking mechanism on the block here
to ensure that the furling line doesn't run out
and the sail unfurls.
And I can then go and pull in the slack
on the sheet at the helm station.
And there we go.
So now, while I was doing this operation,
you'd probably be on autopilot like I am today
and sailing on just the main,
the boat's moving nice and slowly, it's very controlled.
If you need to have your engines on
just to give you a bit more reliability,
bit more predictability if that makes you more confident.
When you're doing maneuvers like this,
for sure put the engines on
to give you a bit of power as well.
We do hope you enjoyed this episode.
I'm a bit outta breath.
Next time I'd use an electric winch for sure.
Do give us a like and subscribe if you did enjoy this video.
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Thanks to joining us.
Enjoy your day.
- [Instructor] Join us in the next episode
for more inspirational and educational content.
We'll see you then.