I am intending to make a furler for my head sail on my sailing boat and looking for help/advice. I will share my ideas below and look forward to your replies.

For the uninitiated a furler is a drum/spool connected to a stainless steel wire in the luff (front) of the sail. The spool is loaded with rope and when the rope is pulled the spool rotates and furls the sail. When the sail sheet (rope attached to the sail) is pulled the sail unfurls and the rope wraps round the spool ready to furl the sail.

I have a furler at the moment but it is not working very well, I think the problem could be that it is too small.

There is a design online by Joel Bergen for a dinghy which my furler will be based on but my yacht is 5 tons so requires scaling up.

The component parts are a spool, an eye bolt, a U bolt, a rope guide, thrust bearing and a saucepan.

The spool will be made from aluminium. 2 discs +/- 150mm and a short length of 80mm diameter round bar, bolted together to make a spool.

The eye bolt (M12) will form the axle for the spool. The eye end of the eye bolt is shackled to a strong point on the bow of the boat, or at the end of the bowsprit in this case.

The U bolt (M12) will be bolted to the spool which will provide the drive to the stainless steel wire in the luff of the sail.

The thrust bearing will sit on the top of the spool and be retained by a large washer or cap held by the threaded end of the eye bolt.

Oh and the saucepan................Having cut away a section of it, it will form a shield around the spool to help prevent the rope on the spool socially distancing itself from the spool.

I look forward to your comments. I am particularly interested to learn more about thrust bearings. I understand there are different types. Single, double etc.

The wire in the luff of the sail is under considerable strain. It is tightened from the top of the mast with 12mm rope running through 2 double blocks. If I had to make a guess I would say there would be 40 or 50 stones of tension in the wire which will be transferred to the thrust bearing. This a variable force depending on wind load.

Thanks for reading

Mike