Hood’s Seafurl unit became the dominant standard on production yachts such as Oday. During the late 1970’s, headsail roller furling systems were perfected and led to a large industry populated by Hood’s Seafurl, Profurl’s ProEnsign, and Seldon’s Furlex models to name a few. Yachts could hoist a new headsail before taking down the old one and avoid the performance loss of a bald headed sail change. The Twinstay became especially popular in racing cycles. Introduced in 1973, the popular Twinstay was the successor to Stearn’s original Hyde System design. Manufacturers would begin rapidly improving and launching new products every seven to fifteen years – about the time it takes for service teams to see what engineering ideas work the best by evaluating real world feedback. ![]() The idea spread and the first widely adopted unit was designed by Tim Stearn. Murray was inspired by a fellow disabled sailor who could not handle this process. Previously all staysails were hanked on, taken down, and stowed in a locker. ![]() The era of modern headsail furling kicked of with the introduction in USA of the headsail furling system in the 1960’s by Murray Scheiner in New York. It would be many years until we would think to revisit and perfect this idea. These relics of the early to mid 1990’s attest to marine ingenuity. The process was finicky and when partially rolled tended to slide along the boom leading to poor sail shape. While a novel idea, the implementation was not acceptable. These booms rotated at the gooseneck wrapping the mainsail around the boom. The current era of mainsail furling systems to manage sailplans traces its roots back to the first half of the 20th century when some wooden boat manufacturers experimented with primitive boom furlers. Nettles are cringles with lines thread through at the same level between the clew and tack points. Some systems have nettles which when secured perfectly flake the reef across the foot. Such a slab reefing system with only a clew line is a “one line” system. Some systems do not have a tack reef line and instead rely on a tack hook. There are variations on this simple theme of securing the main sail at two points. Take in the clew reef line to the same reef point.Take in the tack reef line to the appropriate reef point.Slab, aka jiffy, reefing is best described by the following sequence of commands: It is essentially a manual way to furl up the mainsail. ![]() Reefing on a standard rig is accomplished by a slab reefing system. The company is still making these beautiful and traditional units and boasts of being in continuous production 100 years. With the Wykeham gear either you flew all the sail or none. This arrangement in contrast to modern units prevented sailors from obtaining a defined sail shape when the they partially furled, i.e. Torque transmitted from the lower to upper swivel via a wire thread along the luff of the headsail. The gear rotated via top and bottom swivels attached directly to the head and tack of the jib. Starting the early 1990’s, English craftsmen invented and produced the Wykeham-Martin Furling gear, the first headsail furling system. Before modern rigs, mariners experimented with all types of reefing, flaking, and even furling systems. Another example is slab reefing where you tie down the mainsail at tack and clew reef cringles with a reef line run through the clew reef cringle and possibly another tack reef line. Lazy jacks are a good example of an ancient idea used for many centuries named after British maritime nickname of “jacks.” Whatever their orientation, lazy jacks essentially are two webs of lines on either side of the main which corral when de-powering and ease mainsail flaking. As far back as you research, sailors have experimented with various ways to facilitate head and main sail control. The way you stow your sails is an old problem dating back to the beginning of sailing.
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