Squall Tale
"Jib alone is never a good idea,” our sailing guru Jerry told me. (Everyone should have a sailing guru).
“Why’s that?” I asked. “It’s so much easier than putting up the main.”
“You can only sail off the wind,” he said. “No upwind capability. What happens if someone falls overboard?”
“I guess you roll up the jib and start the motor,” I offered.
“Catastrophic failures seldom occur at the dock,” Jerry replied. He has a habit of spouting sailing platitudes.
Jerry has been sailing for 70 years, racing, cruising, resurrecting old boats. He’s a very conservative sailor. He didn’t put a roller furler on his bow for 40 years. “I don’t trust mechanical work-arounds when a simpler, proven device is functional. Jib hanks are better than friction-filled slots, and gravity seldom fails.”
Jerry’s distrust of furlers and jib-alone sailing was at the back of my mind, at least momentarily, as we bucked and tossed and struggled with a flailing genoa and a jammed furler in erratic gale-force gusts and a
