Leisure Furler

We delivered a 2022 Outbound 46' from Florida to North Carolina. The vessel was one year old with all the bells and whistles of a blue water cruiser with extra creature comforts. She also comes with a leisure furler which is where the main sail rolls into the boom vs the mast or falling/flaking onto the boom. There are horizontal batons to help give good sail shape in this set-up which is a positive in comparison to an in-mast furling main where one would have vertical batons which don't give the sails the same, perfect shape. It rolls up all neat and tidy into the boom. One can have infinite reef points when raising or lower your sail since you lock in the boom roller at your desired sail area. We did find after you "reef", lock down the boom roller to hold the sail in place, that the wind pressure on the exposed sail tightens the roll of sail that is still in the boom, loosing the luff of the sail. It was difficult to keep a tight luff at times. In regards to raising and lowering the sail, first you need to feed the head of the sale into the mast track. You can leave it in there for short periods, yet most owners take it out and roll it in the boom to save the sail head from sun and weather. After you have the head of the main into the track, we had electric winches to raise the main. The boom was to be positions just above 90 degrees to the mast and we were to be set into the wind. It was suggested that we don't reef or raise in more than 15-20 knots of wind. Hey, they do say "if you think about reefing, then you should reef". When raising and lowering the main, we were careful to watch the roll of the sail, so that it didn't get bunched up. We also want to make sure the front and aft of sail are rolling at a similar pace, otherwise the sail will move forward on the boom and potentially impede the area at the mast. This was our first experience with the leisure furler and we wanted to err on the side of caution, so we were very gentle with her. We have had other experiences with in-mast furling mains which have gotten rolled into the mast sloppily are carelessly and it it always more work and time than just taking a couple of extra seconds to roll it slowing into the boom.