| 摘要 |
A maritime sail furling mechanism furls a sail around a rotating luff extrusion from an open to a furled position in a natural fashion while functioning under load. A novel bearing assembly, including upper and lower bearing portions, accommodates static and horizontal loads, and rotates with both the luff extrusion and the sail cable wire. The sail boat mainsail furling and unfurling device includes a rotatable cable with the luff extrusion, around which extrusion the mainsail is wound while the sailboat is under motor power. Each upper and lower bearing portion includes several cylindrical hollow members, one middle member of these members freely rotates as a collar about a circular array of tapered roller bearings placed with their tip ends at a center of a sunburst pattern cage. The tapered roller bearings rotate axially, but their spherical heads, located away from the center of the array, rotate about the circumferential collar. In contrast to present day furling systems wherein a stationary cable has the tendency to interrupt the sail furling process by rubbing against the interior of the hollow extrusion, under the bearing assembly of the present invention, the cable wire is allowed to rotate with the extrusion, thereby eliminating wear, friction and the distortion associated with the prior art furling systems.
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