One of the things that came up in the high winds sailing was that it was still a bit difficult to furl the foresail in high winds. This was because of my numourous attempts to rig something using any spare blocks I had lying around, so a lot of the time the furling line was rubbing or getting caught on various bits while I yanked on with as much force as I could muster while yelling incoherently.

I finally went and bought 4 of these

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Harken do a similar thing here 

I went with the schaefer ones as the marine store had them in stock, and also for a very low price – apparently they hadn’t updated their prices yet!

To install them I had to remove the lifelines, which had a stuck nut. PB Blaster and lots of heat got it free. You drop the thing over the stanchion, and then it tightens using a little hex nut. It’s really pretty clever!

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The final result

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A couple of trials seems to confirm that the line now doesn’t catch on anything and runs nicely free and clear. Now all I need to do is add some reef points on the main and I’m ready for some ~winter sailing~. At least the boat is, not sure about the crew.

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