Recent developments in equipment for roller reefing and furling have included supporting the luff of the sail on a rotatable tubular member in such a way that the tubular member, not the mast, bears the tension of the downhaul and the weight of the sail.
One of the problems, however, with such rotatable tubular members relates to interference with the halyard. Normally, after hoisting the sail, the portion of the halyard used for hoisting the sail is cleated, coiled and hung onto a cleat at the base of the mast. When a rotating tubular member, however, is used for reefing or furling the sail, the halyard must be fitted with a swivel at the peak of the sail or else it must be adapted to rotate with the tubular member. The swivel alternative is undesireable because, in a salt air environment, swivels are difficult to maintain and tend to become jammed. On the other hand, rotating the entire halyard also presents problems because the coil of the part of the halyard used for hoisting the sail cannot be swung around without a serious risk of its becoming uncoiled and tangled. In U.S. Pat. No. 3,980,036, a solution for the halyard problem is suggested. It provides for disconnecting and stowing the part of the halyard used for hoisting. Once the sail has been hoisted, the halyard is made fast to the base of the rotatable tubular member, and the part of the halyard which was used for hoisting the sail, is removed and stowed. This frees the tubular member for rotation without interference from the halyard. (A similar procedure is also described in co-pending application Ser. No. 898,290). Employing a two-part halyard, however, and having to separate it or reconnect its parts is a nuisance, and exposes the user to the risk of losing the tension part of the halyard up the mast. Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to employ a single piece halyard which does not interfere with the rotation of a rotatable tubular furling member and with which there also is no risk of losing the halyard up the mast. A further object of one embodiment of the invention is to provide an endless one-piece halyard which presents no interference with the operation of a rotatable tubular furling or reefing member and which does not need to be cleated.
Rotatable tubular furling arrangements of the type disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,980,036 have a further disadvantage in that they require the use of a sheave at the top of the rotatable tubular member over which the halyard passes. Such sheaves can cause problems particularly if the halyard slips out of the pulley groove. In addition, with such an arrangement the sheave subjects the rotatable tubular member to twice the force of the weight of the sail and the downhaul. Accordingly, another object of the invention is to provide a rotatable tubular member for furling a sail which does not require the use of a halyard sheave at the top of the rotatable tubular member and in which the thrust on the rotatable tubular member is only once the weight of the sail plus the force of the downhaul.
In U.S. Pat. No. 3,938,460 means are described for supporting the sail on a rotatable tubular member without the use of a halyard sheave and thereby achieves the latter-mentioned object. The arrangement employs a sleeve slidably mounted on the rotatable member and a ratchet and spring-loaded pawl to latch the sleeve at the top of the rotatable member while the sail is in use. When it is desired to lower the sail the sleeve is released from the top of the rotatable member by a cam-release mechanism similar to that used on ordinary extension ladders. The halyard is used to lift the sleeve. This brings into play a cam element which prevents the sleeve from latching as it is lowered. This frees the sleeve from the ratchet and permits the sail to be lowered. Once the sleeve has been lowered below the ratchet, the cam element drops back by gravity to its original position in which the sail can again be hoisted and latched to the top of the rotatable member if desired. Thus, by operation of the halyard, the sleeve which supports the peak of the sail can be latched to the top of the rotatable tubular member so that the latter bears the weight of the sail. Alternatively, the sleeve can be unlatched from the top of the rotatable furling member, so that the halyard bears the weight of the sail.
The arrangement of U.S. Pat. No. 3,938,460, however, has other problems. For one thing, it requires the halyard to remain secured to the sleeve at the peak of the sail, and this creates serious problems due to the fact that, when the rotatable tubular member is rotated, the halyard becomes wound up on the stay and is difficult to unsnarl. This problem is not cured by the use of a swivel because the halyard and the stay are so nearly parallel that only slight resistance in the swivel causes the undesired wrapping. Conversely, if the tension on the halyard is relieved, the undesired wrapping action takes place without resistance. Further, once the halyard is wrapped around the stay in this manner, the sail cannot be raised or lowered, and can be either embarrassing or dangerous.
Another problem associated with release mechanisms of the type shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,938,460 is that they do not operate well in the sailboat context. Thus, when a fore-and-aft rigged sailboat "comes about", the sails go through a phase of flapping while the boat passes through the head-to-wind position. The intensity of the flapping, of course, increases with the force of the wind. This flapping action in fact often causes the peak of the sail to oscillate back and forth through an arc of as much as 120.degree. creating substantial centrifugal force which in turn acts on the latching mechanism tending to release the pawl from the ratchet teeth. This tendency to release, of course, is increased as the force of the wind increases, and accordingly, the danger of unintentional release increases at the same time as the undesireability of surprise increases. The centrifugal force also affects the operation of the cam element used to release the sleeve for lowering the sail, and can cause the cam to fail to operate and thereby prevent the lowering of the sail at the critical moment in a gale when the need to lower the sail may be the greatest. An object of the invention is, therefore, to provide a latching mechanism which can be operated with certainty from the deck without interference from centrifugal forces due to flapping of the sail during the head-to-wind phase.
Accordingly, among the objects of the present invention is the provision of means for supporting the peak of a sail on a rotatable furling or reefing member independently of the halyard and in such a way as to relieve the mast of the weight of the sail, and the tension of the downhaul. In addition it is an object to relieve the rotatable tubular members of the tension of the halyard, and simultaneously to provide means at the deck level independent of the halyard for releasing the peak of the sail from the rotatable member so as to lower the sail without operation of the halyard. A further object is to provide means for securing the peak of the sail to a weight-supporting rotatable member, the operation of which securing means is relatively immune from the centrifugal forces which flapping at the peak of the sail creates.