S/V Johanna Rose: Replacing the Head Stay

Friday, June 4, 2021

Replacing the Head Stay

Motivation

After finding bits of a delrin bushing on the foredeck, I discovered that a bushing for the Schaefer roller furling system was deteriorating. I called Schaefer Marine for a replacement delrin liner. Not knowing the exact model, with their help and some measurements I was able to determine the model on Johanna Rose as their previous System 2000 furler. The models 1100 & 2000 use the same extrusion, but the 1100 drum (the part where the rope goes around) has a measurement across the top of 3.125 inches. The 2000 drum across the top measures 3.49 inches.

In order to install the new liner, the whole forestay needed to come down so as the foil cap could be removed. Initially I thought I could disassemble the sta-lok fitting, remove the foil cap, repair the furler, and replace the sta-lok wedge and former for reinstallation. That was a mistake #1.

Since I did not know the exact age of the stay wire, I decided that now was a good time to replace it. In doing so, I cut off the old sta-lok end and then removed the wire stay from the foil (Mistake #2). I later found out that the proper method for replacing the stay wire was to use the old stay wire as a messenger with the new wire end spliced to the old. This is because most foils have riveted inserts with a small central hole for the wire and that trying to feed a new wire through would be impossible. The solution in this case would be to remove all foil rivets and reinstall the foil and insets piece by piece. I called Schaefer Marine to order new rivets from them, and during the conversation with the Schaefer representative, I was told that with the System 2000 furler, they used inserts with a radial "U" grove rather than a central wire stay hole. This allowed feeding a new wire through, rotating the foil at each junction until the wire feed into the "U". The instructions worked great, and I was saved from disassembling and assembling the foils.