Emergency Jib Furling Methods Drills for Your Sailboat
Emergency Jib Furling Drills
If a big weather event arises quickly, and your jib is unable to roller furl in the usual method, you will need a few ideas of how to get it under control. Here are three methods that might salvage the situation; dropping it, hand rolling it, or trussing it.
Why Do I Need to Know How to Do This?
The reasons your roller furling would fail are many – broken return line, mechanical failure, accidental halyard loosening. Whatever the reason; if time is crucial, you need an alternate method to control the jib.
So, it’s best to have a couple methods ready to get an out-of-control jib back in control.
Jibs Gone Wild
A “jib gone wild” due to a weather burst can luff so hard that it is called “flogging,” and could result in damage to your jib.
Another concern is that the jib will harness just enough wind to cause you to drag anchor, or drive you downwind toward the lee shore. The boat may heel wildly, the noise of the flogging will make communication difficult if not impossible.
Also, the amount of tension on the jib sheets could injure someone trying to get it under control.
Communication
During this maneuver, depending on conditions, you may need to make announcements over the VHF radio. Don’t forget to communicate with those on board as well as those in your vicinity if your actions affect them. Flailing around in the waterway with few boaters around may be a “Securite” call, while anchoring with an oncoming tug and barge may call for the “Pan Pan” call. Your decisions should be based on the situation in which your boat is involved.
#1 Drop the Jib
It’s always a surprise to me, but in every four students, there’s often at least one who was not aware that the entire jib can be dropped completely off the forestay.
Locate the jib halyard. Ideally, one person will drop at a rate that someone on the foredeck can keep up with. The foredeck person will need to pull downward on the jib to coax it out of the groove where the bolt rope is threaded.
Depending on the situation; you may need to tension the jib sheets to capture and hold the jib along one side of the deck, or, loosen them to allow for bundling forward.
If things are really wild; just dropping it and stuffing most of the jib into a forward hatch might be all your can accomplish.
There are shackles at the head and at the tack that need to be released in order to completely clear the foredeck of the sail if you choose that option. Then it will drop into a forward hatch a bit easier with no need to truss.
#2 Rolling the Jib
Another method would be, by hand, simply rolling the jib.
You simply grab the bit of jib around the forestay, and start rolling. Someone will need to feed the jib sheets toward you on the foredeck so you can keep rolling. You will end up with the usual jib around the forestay – maybe not so neatly – but rolled.
However, now is when it’s quite a bit different than usual – with nothing to keep the jib from deploying, you will need to take the jib sheets and release them from the cockpit.
Use them to wrap around the jib and forestay to keep the sail from unrolling. You might will need to tie each in opposite directions, and secure them to either the cleats at the bow, the bow pulpit, or somewhere so that the jib cannot unroll.
#3 Reverse Roll and Candy Cane the Jib
Worst-case scenario; you can’t drop the jib, you can’t roll the jib. IF you have a spare halyard, make sure there’s a knot in the mast end, and that the line is secure so you can access it. Take the end that you usually would connect to the head of a sail, and pull as much slack as possible down to you on the deck.
Then, like a maypole, start wrapping the spare halyard around the forestay and jib. It will not be easy, and you may not get a great deal of security. What you wand most to avoid is large “cups” that can scoop air and expand into flogging mini spinnakers aloft.
Keep wrapping as tight as you can, in a spiral around the forestay and jib. You might have some success with pulling down on the clew in order to get a cleaner wrap aloft.
Handling the clew, you may even be able to roll it with the spiral along the foot, all the way to the forestay, then wrap the spare halyard around the slightly neater roll you’ve created.
With these methods; you can use the jib sheets to wind around the lower section of the rolled-up jib to assist the halyard in securing the sail.
Emergency Jib Furl Checklist
- Notice weather coming
- Prepare to furl jib, recognize furling failure
- Assign someone to announce situation on VHF and keep watch
- Have sound producing device ready for emergency signals
- Remind crew in cockpit to mind the jib sheets as planned
- Dash forward
- Assess options
- Roll sail up by hand using portion around headstay / drop jib / roll from clew
- Secure sail with sheets or spare halyard
- Secure lines
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