On some truly big yachts, they go to Park Avenue booms to make flaking of the main easier. Park Avenue booms being significantly wider than traditional ones. Enough sometimes, so that in calm
weather, or at the
dock, a crewman can get up on top of them in order to
work.
The thing is, if you want the extra boom width, without getting a new boom, such is possible. You'd need to
work with a good rigger, welder, & possibly a spar maker. But they weld what are in essence, "grab bars", along both sides of the full length of the boom. Which gives you a wider surface to flake the sail on, plus a wider attachment point for lazy jacks.
- Ah, & thinking on this, after a cup of coffee, the bars need not necessarily be welded onto the boom. They could be bolted on, or possibly (?) riveted. Both attachment systems would depend on the load which they would see.
I'm short on time at the moment, otherwise I'd dig up some pics of what I'm referring to, but hopefully you'll get the point.
BTW, what type of attachment system between the sail & the
mast are you using? As some setups make it FAR easier to rotate the sail, & put in a flake than do others. Plus, the other factor is the distance between sail cars. If they're farther apart, especially with a stiff sail, it's easier to flake things. But if they're close together...
So for a first step, I'd look into options on how the sail's connected to the
mast, so as to make throwing in flakes easier. Which likely would be one of the less expensive options to consider with this problem, knock on
wood.
Some of them even have built in universal joints, albeit that's kind of overkill, complexity & cost wise, IMHO.
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