Jib Furler
Barrie heath edited by Alan Scott
Fitting a self-furling jib to a conventionally rigged Hartley will require some minor adjustments.
Most boats have a wire at the front of the boat which is the forestay, which is intended to hold the mast up and only needs a small adjustment after the forestay has been connected.
The second wire is the jib luff wire, which is usually adjusted to the main tackle alongside your centre board.
The last wire, a smaller one, is intended to be attached to the jib cunningham (the eye on the bottom front of the jib. In this setup, the jib cunningham is not used.
The idea is when you raise the mast to have it standing supported by the two shrouds and the forestay. These need not be dead tight.
After you raised the jib and locked off the halyard, you can then tension the wire in the jib luff using various tackle.
The problem with this setup is that if you attach the furling device to the wire that controls the jib halyard tension without first attaching a fixing bar you will unwind the wire when you pull the furling cylinder. Therefore, the first thing you must do is attach a fix bracket on the foredeck just behind the bow to allow a bar to be attached (see Fig 1).
The bar is from another fitting I pulled to pieces, it is 160mm long, and approx. 18mm high & wide.
A piece of channel aluminium ¾ x ¾ would probably do the job. One end of the bar is attached to this fitting and the other is attached to it just should halyard (see Fig 2).
This stops the rotating furling barrel from the unwinding that the jib halyard wire. The fixed fitting also allows the bar to rotate downwards which creates tension on the jib luff. A line around the furling barrel could be brought back to the cockpit through various leads, now the furler can be safely spun to furl or unfurl the jib (see Fig 3). The current part from Ronstan is a St/St ball bearing swivel unit. Fork & fork take-off with 6.4mm (1/4") dia. Pins. Overall height 80mm (3 1/8") Part No. RF76.
At the top of the jib, another fitting allows the jib to spin at the head but the rotating edge of the jib needs to be kept away from the outer forestay. This can be done by having a special attachment that separates the jib halyard from the out of forestay (see Fig 4).
This bar attaches to the top pf the stationary part of the swivel and the jib is attached to the lower part of the swivel. The bar is ½ x 1/8 aluminium, about 4” long, and shackle at right goes on the forestay.
I have found it necessary to let the tension off the jib so that the out of forestay tension comes back on pulling for away from the jib luff. Don’t let off too much otherwise it becomes difficult to spin the jib.