Roller Furler Pendant

[seattleclimber]

I recently purchased a Catalina 36 with a roller furling headsail. During the sea trial, the pendant on the genoa broke and I'm trying to figure out how to replace it.

From what I've read, they're often used to prevent chafing of the foot of the headsail on the lifelines, so it should raise the sail above the level of the lifeline.

My questions are:

- Should I replace the pendant? Are there any issues in not replacing it?

- What is the best/suggested method for measuring the length of the pendant?

- What is the best material/configuration to use?

Thanks,

Jeremy

[MMNETSEA]

Hi if you still have the 2 "halves" of the broken "Pendant" that should give you the length.

Noted that the break took place during sea trials ( what did the seller have to say?)

A 'pendant' is normally found at the head of the sail, but I guess you are referring to the 'strop' which is attached to the tack, so that the foot of the sail clears the lifelines ?

Harken have a very good installation guide for their Nautor furling gear in a PDF doc (its only 12 pages, but I am having troubling loading it) so I've zipped it --- page 11 has the detail which may help.

Caveat - because you had a breakage, suggest that you take off the sail, then up the mast to carefully examine the top of the furling system, halyard and other hardware. Also check the sail for any extraordinary stretch or damage.

Nuator_Furling.zip

[atavist]

Yes you need to replace the pendant/strop. If it had one odds are it was there for a reason... probably halyard wrap, especially if it's an older roller furling gear. If you don't put your roller furling sail up high enough it will cause halyard wrap, and very quickly cause jamming if your lucky and it doesn't just bird-cage your forestay and cause it to fail...

what I do, and suggest is to just hoist your headsail about 4 inches from the top of the roller furling foil, then tie a pendant/strop from the tack of the sail to the shackle with any stout piece of line so that it's snug, then tighten the halyard down as you normally would. Should be high enough to prevent halyard wrap which is really the most important thing with a roller furling rig. Any strong bit of line will do, even just a sail-tie or such, your luff shouldn't be so tight that you need an exceptionally strong/thick piece of line here. Afterwards roll your sail in and out a few times to make sure the halyard isn't wrapping... also, make sure there are at least a half dozen or so extra turns on the furling drum when you roll the sail in all the way in slack weather... if not and you are rolling it in in strong winds you may find that the sail wraps tighter and you are suddenly out of furling line and the sail isn't in all the way.

[seattleclimber]

Thanks for the responses. In everything that I read, I had not heard of a "strop", but "pendant" was used for both the line secured at the head and the tack.

I thought of using both of the "halves" of the pendant/strop, but there is only one piece left on the shackle. I don't recall what it looked like before it broke, so I don't remember how it was secured.

The sellers weren't even on the sea trial and had nothing to say about it afterward. I won't say anything bad about them, because I've never even met them, but they were not the most agreeable people to work with. Likewise, the broker had nothing to say about it either.

Thanks again for the help.

[atavist]

Originally Posted by seattleclimber

The sellers weren't even on the sea trial and had nothing to say about it afterward. I won't say anything bad about them, because I've never even met them, but they were not the most agreeable people to work with. Likewise, the broker had nothing to say about it either.

that stinks...

to my mind when you buy a boat you are buying the previous owner, so to speak... the last owner of my boat was the son of the original owners... he was on the sea trial, walked me through the entire boat bit by bit (took several hours), and we still stay in touch.. if something new comes up that I'm unsure of or wonder if there could be a history of I give him a call and he is always glad to provide any info/offer advice...

I take it your sale is complete?? I don't know the boat obviously but I'd be very hesitant if the previous owners aren't at least semi present and amicable about providing info...

if the sale is complete, good luck, hopefully the boat's nicer than the owners.

[redbopeep]

We bought a 30' Rawson thru a broker w/o the owners being around. It was fine--a few weird things on the boat that we had to figure out, but all in all ok. When we sold the boat, we did relay all the info we could to the new owners though.

On that boat, the pennants top and bottom (never heard it called a strop, btw) were made with a thimble swaged on each end of a length of the same white plastic coated stainless steel that you see on lifelines. I suppose the pennants could be made of just about anything--especially the lower one. In our case, the pennants were different lengths depending on the sail size and were stored with the sails. If you have more than one headsail aboard, you might have more than one pennant as well.

I'd probably do as Atavist suggests and use whatever bit of rope that I have around the boat that will suit the project.

Fair winds...

[seattleclimber]

It was quite unfortunate that the sellers weren't more involved, because there were loads of questions that I wanted to ask as its my first boat. However, we got a really good recommendation on a surveyor and he did a great job in going over the boat before we decided to buy it. I'm sure there are things that we will find out later, but that comes with buying anything used.

Thanks for all the help with the pendant. I feel pretty comfortable in fixing this issue now.

Jeremy

[Louiesails]

Jeremy,

We add one more thing to the good advice above, when we have the height of the furler upper swivel correctly located on the foil so there is no halyard wrap, we mark the halyard with a piece of rigging tape, on a fixed point on the mast (for us the bottom of our trysail track). Now, every jib we hoist is correct as to swivel location. Now the lower pendant can be tensioned to provide the correct luff tension, just as mainsails have tack downhauls. We use a piece of webbing for the pendant, with a loop sewn into it, providing a location to 'truckers hitch' it correctly as the wind picks up and keep the luff smooth. Don't forget to ease the halyard a bit after you have rolled up the sail so it is not being stressed while you are not using it.

Enjoy your new boat!

Robert