profurl setscrews!

[dougs]

Good morning,

Yesterday was a nice quiet day so I thought i would take my Genoa off the furler for the season. I got it about 8 feet down and it sharply stopped descending... I have read of the setscrews backing out of the extrusions on profurl furlers (LCI-42 i think).

So next quiet day i will un-roll and go up to fix.

I have a few questions:

1.) Should i use locktite (blue or red)?

2.) I plan on re-locktiteing all of the setscrews, any thoughts on dropping a minimum? know offhand what size/material these screws are so i can have some spares?

3.) Up top I guess I could run a lanyard around the sail and stay to get over to the headstay but as i come down i might have a mess in front of me as the sail grows. Perhaps if I make up the spin halyard tightly and use a lanyard around that?

This is a 55' isomat mast and i climb using a harness and ascenders. Probably will go up on the spare jib halyard.

Any thoughts would be nice.

Thanks
Doug

[Brion Toss]

Hello,
First, I recommend your going to the July, 2005 "Fair Leads", for a story about the consequences of a similar situation. Next, the screws are metric socket heads, theoretically available from Profurl, but since they have once again laid off all their competent people and hired a new crew, from, I believe, Vermont, in a weird cost-cutting move, it has become even more difficult than usual to get anything resembling service on Profurls. So you might want to get out your thread gauge and order up some screws. Get spares. Use blue loctite.
As for the sail, get up there on two halyards, even if it means leading the main foul for a safety. Slack the jib, unshackle the head from the swivel, and lower away the sail to someone on deck --- it'll just fall down. Then work your way down the foil, using a lanyard to keep you close enough to work. But please, read that article first.
As a side note, Profurl's come with a green loctite on the set screws; sometimes it's just right, sometimes there's too little, and sometimes way too little. Sometimes the screws back out, and sometimes they corrode in place, so you have to drill them out. Just one of the many ways this brand has of ruining your day.
Fair leads,
Brion Toss

[dougs]

Brian,
Thanks for the removal detail which i hope i will not need since this has been in relatively fresh conditions and only up to 2 seasons.

Brion,
I knew i remembered reading about that somewhere. If i can stop laughing i'll have to see what it would take to arange for a thrill ride like that. I realized shortly after posting that unshackling and lowering the sail was the first order of buisness.

Thanks guys

[Jim Fulton]

I had a different setscrew problem with my ProFurl. It started at the end of last season when I couldn't lower the genoa. At first I thought that either the halyard was jammed in the sheave or that the swivel had somehow been pulled over the top of the foil. Neither was the case, but the swivel was immoveable. I went up the mast, released the sail, and left the problem for the Spring. In the Spring, I had the rig pulled. The swivel was so securely jammed--and for no apparent reason--that I thought I was going to have to cut it off. Finally I discovered that there is supposed to be a 4 mm headless setscrew running through the body of the swivel; it serves to locate the inner plastic sleeve that rides on the foil. What had happened was that the setscrew had somehow gone all the way through the swivel body and the inner sleeve and was caught between the foil and the sleeve. I managed to get it out, and replaced it with a machine screw.

I can only begin to guess how this happened. The threads in the swivel body are intact, and there was no significant damage to the foil (I smoothed out some small gouges). The setscrew was obviously not held securely by whatever goop was on it, so it was able to work its way inward. I first thought it might have caught on one of the foil joints, but the only marks on the foil are at the top.

I strongly recommend that anyone who has a ProFurl avoid this problem by replacing the setscrew with a short machine screw set in Loctite. The head doesn't interfere with anything. Getting it the right length is a cut-and-try process.

Jim Fulton

[dougs]

Jim,

Thanks i wiil replace that when i get it down.

Doug