I have been unable to get my boat in the water this season as we have been busy with travels and hip surgery. At any rate I am wanting to do some modifications to safely solo sail next season as my wife has abandoned ship for good. I have looked at several furlers and, due to price and the kind of sailing I do, I am interested in the CDI. Has anyone had good or not so good experiences with this furler? Any suggestions would be welcome. Jack van Zandt Jack ended up buying a Schaeffer furling system and sent in the following to the Forum on September 6, 2009.

With a great product and exceptional customer service, let CDI be you first choice when it comes to furling. Inquire about our Headsail Furlers Headsail Furlers.

Thanks so much for the feed back. I ended up purchasing a Schaefer furler only because it was on sale making it less expensive than the CDI. It works fine and makes my single handing a much safer and easier experience. **************************** This past Spring Les Bailey () bought a CDI furler, and this past August posted his experience with this system as a reply to Jack's initial inquiry (minor edits): Hi Jack! I installed a 150% genoa on a CDI furler this spring. I'm well satisfied!! My friend Oly and myself installed it at dockside.

(do at night when you don't have an audience - only lost one pin overboard, and only snagged once trying to thread the forestay. The directions are clear, and useful if read! Operation, great. The only difficulty I have experienced is winding in the sail in extra heavy wind. A little heavier gauge rope on the winding spool would be easier on the hands. Actually more experience would have kept me out of that situation!

Good luck with your choice! Les Bailey *********************** Erik Evens ( ) also replied in the Forum with the following post Hi Jack- I have a CDI furler on Robin Lee. So far, no complaints whatsoever. The installation went very well, and the function of the unit has been flawless.

Les is right, a heavier furling line is better. I believe CDI recommends a 1/4' line. I used 3/8' and it works fine.

I think that the CDI furler is a well engineered product, and a great value.Erik Evens September 8, 2009 Erik followed up with the following post on the Forum Forum: General Topic: jib furler Posted By: Erik Evens Hi Ron- I have the CDI Flexible Furler FF4 on Robin Lee. I purchased my system as part of a package deal, including my new mainsail and a new 135% genoa, from JSI Sails, who is a CDI reseller. My genoa was cut by JSI exactly to fit the furler, and has white UV protection cloth at the foot and leach.

The CDI furler can be user installed without much difficulty. It comes with a conplete, illustrated installation manual which is well written and complete. All my questions were nicely addresses in the manual.

The headfoil for the CDI FF4 is rigid plastic, and comes in a big roll, and you have to unroll it and straighten it before installation. This is pretty easy, but a bit of an awkward task that takes some room to manouver.

Be prepared when you order your furler, because when it arrives, you have to uncoil the foil within a day or so, or you risk a kinked foil. Straightening the foil takes a day or so. After that, the installation went very smoothly.a nice afternoon project. The CDI furler is a rigid-luff system with an integrated halyard, which means that the foil is loaded in compression by the halyard tension, and the entire luff, including head sheave and halyard, rotates when the sail is furled and unfurled. This has advantages and drawbacks.

The biggest advantage is in simplicity. There is no complicated swivelling head component, and this eliminates the biggest hassle of roller-furling: the potential of twisting and fouling the jib halyard. The associated drawback is that it's difficult to adjust halyard tension on the jib. To do so necessitates a trip to the bow, and the adjustment entails tensioning or loosening a lacing at the foot of the sail. The CDI should not be regarded as a preferred option for racing - adjusting the halyard while under sail is difficult, and should be regarded as an at the dock, set-it-and-forget-it setting.

I'm considering replacing the lacing at the foot with a small turning block and a cleat attached to the side of the top of the drum, to make the adjustment a bit easier. My FF4 unit is NOT ball raced. It turns on a large Teflon bearing which works beautifully. They offer ball-bearings as an upgrade for an additional $170 or so, but I haven't found any need for them under normal loading. I've been very pleased with the CDI.