ferler

Old French ferler (to furl, to bind tightly) entered English maritime vocabulary by the 16th century. To furl a sail is to roll or fold it tightly against the yard or boom and secure it with gaskets (small ropes). Before furling, a sail must be lowered or gathered — before that, the wind must be taken out of it. The sequence: spill the wind, gather the sail, furl and secure. Furling is the work of ending: the sail's purpose done, its energy contained.

Furling was physically demanding on square-rigged ships. Sailors had to climb the ratlines (rope ladders up the mast), edge out along the yard (horizontal pole), hang over the yard by their stomachs, and gather the sail up by hand while the ship moved. On a first-rate ship of the line in the Royal Navy, 800 men were not enough to furl all sails simultaneously in a squall. The ship's survival sometimes depended on how fast a crew could furl.

The opposite of furl is make sail or set sail — to unfurl, to release the gathered canvas to the wind. Where furling is ending, making sail is beginning. The sea-language of departure and arrival runs through furl: you furl before entering port, you unfurl when leaving it. The action marks the threshold between sea-time and shore-time.

Modern sailing yachts use roller furling systems: the sail rolls around a wire like a window blind, furled and unfurled by a line from the cockpit without anyone leaving the deck. What took ten men hanging over a yard in gale conditions now takes one person pulling a rope. The word furl survived the technology change. The physical memory of the work did not.