Building the foil

It is possible to measure and fit a furler with the mast already up, but in our case the mast was down as we had only just launched and planned to raise it ourselves with a pair of home-made sheerlegs. If you opt to do it with the mast up, you’ll need to replace the forestay with a halyard during the work. The furler comes with detailed instructions, written for those intending to fit it with the mast up. If you plan to do it with the mast down it’s a bit easier, but you need to adapt the instructions a little. Here’s how we did it. 1. The first step is to cut the new forestay. I made sure they were the same length by looping a line through the top swaged eye of the old and new stays and pulling them tight…

2 …before marking the length by setting the drums alongside each other and allowing sufficient length to make the swageless lower fitting.

3. I gave our emergency rigging cutters a try to cut the stay, although a hacksaw would have been fine. Taping the wire prevents it from unravelling.

4. At this point the instructions require you to make a mark 100mm from the end of the wire. This is the point to which the extrusions will be measured.

5. It’s now time to dry-fit the foils. Start by fitting the top nylon bush to the top foil…

6. …then slide it up to meet the top swaged eye.

7. Follow suit with the other foils, keeping the bottom foil (the one with the sail entry) to one side. Temporarily fit the joining pieces between the foils.

8. Set the bottom foil alongside the mark made earlier, so that it overlaps the next foil up, and mark the overlap.

9. Transfer the length marked to the top foil, then cut it to length. In our case, the offcut was longer than the piece used.

10. Tidy up the trimmed end and fit the top bush with the supplied screws, having first pilot-drilled the holes. 11. It’s now time for final assembly of the foil. Push in a nylon bush, followed by a joining piece, at each joint. 12. The joining pieces are secured with four screws, with Loctite 242 to prevent them coming loose. 13. At the bottom of the foil, another bush sits in the bottom of the tube. Push it in to align the holes… 14. …then temporarily secure it with the grub screw provided. This is only for assembly, and will later be removed. 15. Finally, slide the top swivel and bottom torque tube up the foil.