Recently, a client got in touch looking for a furling system. He wanted some advice on how to fit it to his boat, so we went on board to look at the bow and take a few measurements.
Where could we put the furler? What would it attach to? And how would the boat take the loads from the sail? By the time we got back to the office, we were working on a proposal for the whole installation.
Finding a place for the tack
We started with the layout of the bow and the space available on deck. The tack needed to sit far enough forward for the furling setup to work, and the bowsprit needed to be supported where we could transfer the loads into the boat.
We proposed a removable carbon bowsprit. It would give the client a dedicated tack point forward of the bow when he needed it, with the option to take the sprit off when he wasn’t using it.
From the sail to the boat structure
Once we had a layout, we ran the load calculations and checked the deck and the structure beneath it. The loads from the sail pass through the tack fitting and the bowsprit before reaching the boat at the mounting and support points. Working through that load path helped us decide where those points should sit and how to design the fittings around them.
With the mounting arrangement defined, we specified the carbon tube and the tack system at its outboard end.
One proposal for the whole installation
Once the design was finalised, we coordinated the manufacture of every component and delivered the complete system to the client, backed by load calculations and ready to install. The client came to us with a question about fitting a furler. We took the project from the first measurements on board through to a system designed and built for his boat.
That’s the kind of project we take on at MORFRAC. You can come to us with a piece of hardware in mind or simply tell us what you’d like to do on board. We can help define the brief, check what the boat can accommodate and develop the fittings and the system together.
Got something you’d like to change on your boat? Let’s talk it through.
