StackPack-Type Main Sail Covers

[SV Demeter]

My ketch came with them and I am considering ditching the system. They do flop around and interrupt the airflow around the lower part of the sail. I am certain they affect performance but to what degree I cant truely say. My lazyjacks with this system are not stowable either. The thing I do like about it is that the main (fully battened) does tend to drop right into the stack pack and I just zip it up. I am short and my boom is a bit high so flaking and sail ties are not something I am looking forward to but will proabbly learn to live with as this thing looks like crap in my opinion. I think a lot of the reason for mine flopping around is that the sunbrella is old and probably stretched out.

[s/v Beth]

I have heard nothing but good things about the system until now. Was it better when the Sunbrella was new?? How about for chartering- is it a good system?

[Minggat]

Originally Posted by SV Escape Plan

My lazyjacks with this system are not stowable.......

I think a lot of the reason for mine flopping around is that the sunbrella is old and probably stretched out.

Looks like yours is one of those that attaches to the mast.

Rather than ditch the systen, why not just modify to take care of the shortcomings? You've obviously lived with it for a while and could tell your canvas guy or sailmaker what you want to see different.

Rather than stretched Sunbrella I'd guess it was ill fitting from the start. A system that does not allow you to stow the Lazy Jacks sounds like there was not quite enough thought put into it.

[spinwing]

Admiral likes our Mack Pack system, with new Mack sail, but the jury is still way out in my opinion. This is our first season in the new, to us, boat and we are still learning.
Closing and opening the sail cover is the only real obvious advantage.
With fully battened sail the batten got snagged every time we raised the sail until we released the pack lines. Now it is not too bad.
Lowering the sail was a different story; we started by ‘dropping’ the main – wrong – slides jammed every time requiring the sail to be re-hoisted and hauled down with tension on the halyard. Now keeping tension on the main halyard and pulling the luff down seems to be the answer.
The sail cover is another issue; if you leave it alone in a race you may as well fly a parachute as it fills and is a real drag – pun intended. Now it gets unclipped from the mast and untied from the backstay. The cover is then held around the boom with six bungie cords; four for the stack rigging – at each leg of the pack rig - and one each at the mast and end of boom.. This alone had dramatically improved our racing stats.
On balance, would I fit it to another boat, probably but I would have a very hard look at the system and the planned rigging. It is not all bonus.

[Bash]

Originally Posted by s/v Beth

How about for chartering- is it a good system?

The stackpack was invented for use within the chartering system. The problem there has always been that someone on a one-week charter is not inclined to put the sail covers up after a daysail because they don't really care about long-term UV damage, since they will only be on that particular boat for a week or two. (And they may be unaware that their laziness will add to the price of future charters because sails don't last as long as they should in the charter industry.)

The stackpack was an attempt to find a way to get the more lazy charterers to put on a sail cover once the boat was anchored. Theory here is that the easier you make it....

[NDH]

Originally Posted by Minggat

You should be able to stow the lazy jacks as mentioned above rather than leaving them deployed as you mention. But plenty of people sail with them deployed as well. You don't have to leave the Lazy Jacks so tight that they alter sail shape.

Lots of opinions out there. Mine is... You'll love it.

We have lazyjacks a stack pack and a fully battened main and 95% of the time they are fine but last weekend in a squall and while trying to put in a 2nd reef a batten got caught in the laztjacks and for a few minutes we could not get main up or down causing brief excitement.

Thinking through the problem later I conclude a better system would be to remove the lazyjacks while under sail and thanks to this thread I read this is a method some of you use so a couple of questions.

I have never seen a removable system before so presumably the lazyjacks stow at the mast when sailing and without the lazyjacks for support what stops the stackpack bag just dropping each side of the boom.

Any explanations and possible sketches would be appreciated.

Thanks

[nigel1]

I have a stack pack system, with lazy jacks, the mainsail is a heavy, and bot fully battened. When I bought the boat, the lazy jacks were virtually fixed in place, (the top of the system was fixed to the mast).
I fitted a small block each side of the mast where the lazyjack system had been fixed, and extended the lazy jacks to go through the blocks, and back to the base of the mast, where the are cleated. In messing about with the stack pack, I found that there were securing straps inside the pack, so now, when getting ready to sail, the lazy jacks are slacked, and the stack packs is lowered and secured to the boom, I use a rope around the sail/boom to keep things tidy until the sail needs to go up. nothing to flaps about, and the lazy jack system remains in place, slacked when sailing, or tensioned when the sail is to be dropped.
As the sail is heavy material, it does need a bit of pull on the leach to get it to stow neatly on the boom. If the weather conditions make it difficult to stow the sail, it just comes down any old way, secured with rope, and sorted out once the boat is secured, and conditions are easier to tidy up the sail.

[osirissail]

Originally Posted by delmarrey

Maybe "flaking" is not the right word.
I have a 4 strand lazy-jack and it's barely enough to contain the offshore main that I have. If it were a stack pack I'd still have to climb up and straighten out the sail to get it in. So, either way it would be just as difficult to handle.
......................................_/)

I built my own "stack-pak" type sail cover and use a 4 strand lazy jack system. And I do have to climb up on the pilot house roof to "re-arrange" the sail so it will lie neatly inside the sail cover system. But I have 10 oz sailcloth and full batten mainsail so it does not like to fold no matter what system you use.
- - Building/sewing your own saved an enormous amount of money and was not difficult except I underestimated the height of the flaked sail so had to sew on a 10 inch strip below the to make the pack bigger. Other than that it has worked just fine for the last 12 years.
- - The difficult part is deciding what system to use to "close" the top of the pak and keep the sun's UV from cooking the top of the flaked sail. I used a very long zipper but after ten years the zipper is coming apart.
- - Under sail the whole stack pack type system lies dormant along the boom without having to do anything to the lazy jacks. My mainsail when raised lifts the end of the boom about 12 inches or more. That automatically puts slack in the lazy jack system. I have never had a problem with the "pak" even when in gales and torrential rains while underway.

[Troubadour52993]

We also made our own pack system. On a short sail, we will leave the bag up, supported by the lazyjacks. It flaps a bit but not too much. On longer sails, or stronger winds, we slacken the lazyjacks and roll the sides down to the boom. The upper edge of our bag has a batten (PVC pipe) which holds it fairly stiffly both in the up position and down along the boom with only a few lashings to hold it in place. We lower the lazyjacks in port to put up our awning, and the system stays put on top of the boom. We designed ours that the only hardware added were four harken blocks on the mast, 2 at the top spreader for the lazyjacks and 2 just above the top of the flaked sail to raise/lower the front edge. Sewn flaps cover the zipper to protect it from UV damage. Our main is fairly stiff also, so after dropping it we need to flake it better and get the reefing lines in the bag, but much better than no system. We add a sunbrella wrap around the mast when inport to protect the front of the sail, the winches, and the coiled lines.

We double-handed on the boat I used to race, and it was quickly apparent how much harder the sails were to douse without a crew, so I started reading up on these things to help short-handed folks.

If you're interested in our sail bag system, a 2-part article was printed in Southwinds magazine last year, should be in their archives. I'd look it up for you, but their site is a bit bandwidth intensive and I don't have a good connection right now.

[mikereed100]

Thanks Troubador, great article.

ReadOz - Read - Southwinds Magazine - November 2009__

ReadOz - Read - Southwinds Magazine - December 2009__

Mike