Equipment & Gear used on our CR Yachts 400DS sailboat
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Selden Furlex 300S furling jib headsail system
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As the main sail of the sailboat Mad Dog Voyager uses a furling system, the headsail is also fitted to a Furling jib headsail system by Selden.

The Furlex 300S, is a sturdily built assembly, that like the main sail, allows us full control of the headsail from the safety and security of the cockpit. The headsail on Mad Dog Voyager is a 140% Genoa. This means that if you drew a triangle from the main mast along the deck and up the Forestay, the Genoa (headsail) is 140% larger than this area.

With all of the lines controlling the Genoa running back to the cockpit as well, it allows us to unfurl (or unroll) the genoa as much or little as we want. As with many things on sailboats, everyone has opinions as to what is the best system. It is commonly believed that a furling headsail is not as efficient as a regular hoisted headsail, as the regular headsail can be easily replaced by a smaller sail if weather dictates. However once a sail comes down it has to be stored somewhere and how many sails do you want to store on board? Everything is a compromise when sailing but we think that the ease of use and efficiency of the Furlex 300S allows us to pretty much do everything we want. The only time we would replace the Genoa is if there are very ad storm conditions and even that is only a 10 minute job to remove and replace the furling Genoa with another sail.

The Genoa sheets (the lines running from the loose corner of the sail back to the cockpit) run through a set of travellers mounted along side the cabin to allow for even further control as to the shape and characteristics of the Genoa. These travellers are also controlled by lines running back to the cockpit. With all these lines running to the cockpit, we hardly every have to get up (except to refill our glasses and apply more suntan lotion)!

 

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