Hello Mike,

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Regarding your question about building your own roller furler. I made my jib furler for my Eco6 catamaran. This was not a furler with a luff spar, but rather the jib furls around its own wire luff which is fine for a small jib. Ronstan makes small jib furlers but here in New Zealand the suitable sized furler was still $500. I did a Google search for making a furler and found Joels Navigator blog site. There he gives very good instructions and photos of how to make a furler. I did also find something on the Duckworks site.

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My furler is basically made out of workshop scrap bits n’pieces. I purchased the central eye bolt, a stainless steel ball bearing miniature thrust bearing, and a standard Ronstan ball bearing swivel for the top swivel. All up the cost was about $50, so only one tenth of the Ronstan furler, and it seems to work just fine. A jib is non reefable with this type of furler, so if you want to be able to partially furl the jib you would need a furler with a luff spar, but I have seen information on the web about how to DIY these.

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David