Broken roller furler: damage or wear and tear?

When the roller furler is broken, the genoa often cannot be furled or dropped, and in a rising wind that quickly turns dangerous. Plenty of parts can fail: the drum, the halyard swivel at the top, a foil section, the furling line, the forestay inside the foil or its terminal. The question that follows is always the same: was it damage from an event, or wear and tear that had been building for years? Whether a hull policy pays turns on the answer.

Hull cover generally responds to sudden damage from an outside event: a collision, a gust that overloads the rig, a berthing where the forestay catches a pile. Wear, corrosion and fatigue are excluded by many wordings. With us, breaking of the rig in a collision or at the berth is an accident event, covered from Basis Plus; in Basis it is covered only where a storm caused it. So the surveyor looks at the fracture. A fresh, bright break points to overload; a crack with old dark edges or rust at the terminal points to a defect that was there for some time. Expect questions about the age of the forestay, the last rig inspection and whether the furling line was winched in against resistance. How resulting damage is treated, such as a dismasting after a forestay failure, varies from policy to policy; read that clause in yours.

At sea, safety comes first: lash the sail to the foil or drop it under control, rig a spare halyard as a temporary forestay if the forestay has gone, and head for the nearest harbour. Keep the broken parts, photograph the fracture and the rig, log the wind, sea state and what happened, and report the damage before you instruct a repair. As prevention, look at the furler every time the boat is launched: play in the drum and swivel bearings, cracks at the terminals, the state of the furling line, and keep an invoice or report that shows the rig was checked.

Worth remembering

A documented rig check is worth as much in a claim as the broken parts.