[petersfreeman]

Thanks Paul K.

Do you know about the Hunter 38 in particular? It seems that Hunter offers either “Roller Furling” or “Non-Roller Furling”. I was wondering how the Hunter 38 Non-Roller Furling option was engineered. My guess is that it would be hanked on sails as that would be the default. I thought they might offer a “racing version” with the Tuff-Luff type of forestay you mentioned.

Is the Hunter 38 “roller furling” or “roller reefing”? I mean, could you reduce sail area as the wind speed increased by shortening the headsail area by partially furling it? I recognize that a half-furled sail would be baggy and I have read that some sailors strategically place towels or rope at the luff before they start partially furling to take out some of that bagginess. I’m not that familiar with “roller furling” vs. “roller reefing” systems. I thought that “roller furling” systems only give you the option of full sail or no sail as the gear was not strong enough to allow for the headsail to work in thirty knots of wind (for example). Whereas a “roller reefing” system was engineered to do be strong enough to be used in thirty knots of wind and even had padding built into the luff area of the sail to compensate for bagginess.

The reason I am asking is that I am a novelist working on my latest book, “Escape!” which features a Hunter 38. Right now, the story is assuming the Hunter 38 is fitted with roller furling and supplied with a reaching spinnaker. I was toying with the idea of having it kitted out for racing with a tri-radial spinnaker, spinnaker poles and multiple headsails. I may stay with the simple arrangement of furling headsail and reaching spinnaker however if I can’t reduce the sail area of the headsail, I might have my story’s Hunter 38 fitted with hanked on headsails.

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