Hi Matt,
Yes, it’s a nice sensible system. The furling drum is a bit of a tardis – you could use quite a heavy line and still not overcrowd the drum.
Cost – approximately the same as 2 Mike Mac genoas, or less than one new mainsail. 😉
I might as well add a couple of comments now I’m thinking about furling gear. We omitted the fitting at the bottom of the photo (green arrow) on Swiebertje’s advice. It isn’t strictly necessary, and would raise the foot of the sail even more than with the drum alone. However, this wasn’t as simple as you might think and I had to re-model the shroud adjuster that was already serving to elongate the bow fitting (separating drum from forestay on old system) to make it all fit. The pin arrowed red fits through the extended bow fitting, retained with a ring to replace the split-pin illustrated.
The ring arrowed in blue is a standard modification to receive whatever you choose to use to hold the genoa tack. Our genoa has cloth tape loops at tack and head and these are tied in place with thin rope/line.
On both counts the sail is therefore as low as it can be within the contraints of this system. It is still higher off the bow than would normally be the case with no reefing or furling system and this means that the sheet fairleads have to be right back to the aft end of the tracks (ideally further!) if the full genoa is being flown.
The absence of the green arrowed fitting limits the amount of aft movement of the luff spar when rigging/unrigging the boat, as the drum is already fairly close to the deck in its normal position. The mast could not for example be dropped with the system in place, so it might be worth considering accepting a slight loss of sailing performance for the convenience of extra flexibility, if planning a cruise involving bridges.
I’ll mention the safety stay issue another time.