Newbie Sailing Question: Luff Tape

[Jarod]

hi there

Went to the marina today with the plan of hoisting the sail up the Harken furler on my boat. My question is the luff has two ropes sewn into it and the foil on the furler has to slots which i assume accept both of these small ropes? I am having a bear of a time getting them started on the foil as the luff is quite frayed so much so that one of the small lines is exposed for about ten inches.(just hanging loose)....i assume i should probably take the sail in to have it looked at for repair...how much would this cost and am I installing the sail properlY?

thanks in advance.

 

[rssailor]

confused

never have heard of a sail with two luff tapes on it. Sounds like this sail is messed up or you are having trouble describing it. I would take the sail in to a local sailmaker and have look at it and see if they are able to fix it. Maybe they will give you some good advice on how to use the sail. Also are you missing your pre-feeder?
On my Harken, there are two grooves and you only use one at a time. Ryan

 

[NateHanson]

I've seen a genoa before with 2 luff tapes, and I don't know what that's all about. I've only ever seen a sail fed into one track in the furler extrusion.

Good idea to take it to a sailmaker and ask him what the two luff tapes are for.

And I'd strongly recommend getting the worn luff fixed before using it. It might be a hundred dollar repair now, but if you go sailing with it, it is almost guaranteed to get worse, and that could cost you much more.

Nate

 

[Seth]

Luff tapes

There are some manufacturers of luff tape who have a second, slightly smaller rope sewn in just behind the leading edge rope-just ignore it, and feed in the rope on the leading edge.

For the frayed part, this is a simple repair for the sailmaker, or you can just do what they do: Take a hot knife, and at the bottom of the frayed section (as soon as you are into the healthy material) make a cut perpendicular to the luff rope with the hot knife to trim off the frayed material, and stop your cut at the inboard limit of the luff tape. This is about a 1-1.5" cut. Then you can run the flat part of the hot knife over the open seam left from cutting, and while it is till hot, squeeze the cloth together to close the open seam (gloves help-you can get a minor burn sometimes without them).

Now the top of the luff tape will be some distance below the head of the sail, but this is OK as long as it is not more than 15-18" or so. If you have more than that distance from the head that is unusable, have your sailmaker check it out.

Hope this makes sense..

Good luck!

S

 

[Jarod]

thanks for the answers everyone, ok well if i only insert one of the ropes on the luff tape into the extrusion then why does harken have to slots on the foil...slightly confused....why woundnt they just have the one slot like some of the other manufacturers...

 

[NateHanson]

The two slots allow you to make faster headsail changes when racing, or fly two headsails when drifting slowly downwind in the horse-latitudes.

 

[Jarod]

ahh ok thanks Nate....so much to learn i am finding...

 

[Seth]

As Nate says

Just so your confusion is complete, the faster headsail changes go like this:

You are sailing along on either one of the 2 grooves, and decide you either need to change up to a bigger sail or down to a smaller sail. Take the new sail and feed it into the open slot, attach the (second) halyard, hoist and trim the new sail. Then ease the sheet and halyard on the old sail and drop it to the deck and clean up your mess.

There are variations on this-tack changes, inside drop, outside drop, etc., but the common idea is to hoist and trim the new sail before you drop the old one-so you always have a headsail up and working..

The furlers you see with a single groove are the less expensive models that are not meant to switch between racing and cruising mode-some are very high quality, but cost less because the extrusion is simpler-and these of course are for cruisers who do not plan on quick changes or flying 2 headsails while "running in the trades"..

Cheers,
S