Hoisting Main with Lazyjacks in Place

[JPA Cate]

El Ping, what is the height of your mast, and the length of your boom? Reason I ask is that our lazy jacks have 5 feet; mast height is about 55 ft., boom length ~ 19 ft. I'm wondering if we could make 3 feet work okay.....for the next boom bag we build.

Thanks,

Ann

[El Pinguino]

Originally Posted by JPA Cate

El Ping, what is the height of your mast, and the length of your boom? Reason I ask is that our lazy jacks have 5 feet; mast height is about 55 ft., boom length ~ 19 ft. I'm wondering if we could make 3 feet work okay.....for the next boom bag we build.

Thanks,

Ann

Hello Ann,

You should be able to lift the lengths from the plan here.....
https://sailboatdata.com/sailboat/sealord-39-westerly

I think 55 ft may be her air draft.... I would expect everything to be a bit shorter than your boat.

3 legs would probably be ok with a boom bag...maybe a bit lumpy if 'basic' like mine...

[JPA Cate]

Thank you for that, El Ping, our sailmaker at the time, had told us that all the legs needed to be perpendicular to the boom, except the final one, hense the shape of ours.

Ann

[El Pinguino]

I think mine is like that... if you look at the pic above the first two seem to be vertical. You would just need to lay it out on paper to get the spacing. I'm not sure if my method would work with a stakpak sort of a system...

[fxykty]

Our boom is 6.4m long and we have 4 legs attached to the stack pack at about 1m intervals. The aft legs are about 1.2m forward of the end of the boom, which means the bottom two battens are past those legs, but the upper 4 battens are within the lazy jacks.

Our setup means with one or two reefs there is no interference with the lazy jacks. However, with the third reef we have to check the third batten on the lazy jacks on the hoist and also if we’re off the wind have to make sure the headboard cars don’t catch under the leeward lazy jack at the mast attachment (cheek blocks on the sides of the mast).

[Suijin]

I just point my boat into the wind, loosen the mainsheet, and time my hauls on the main halyard to when the battens are not going to catch on the lazy jacks. I have a fully battened main which I suppose makes it easier...less flapping.

My lazy jacks stay up about 90% of the time.

[Jenneau Owner]

As some one mentioned earlier. When raising the sail or putting in a reef try letting off the kicker(or vang in the US) and pulling up the boom with the topping lift.
This totally depowers the sail and when head to wind the leach of the sail will be under no tension and flutter in the wind.
Has worked for me for many years.

[merrydolphin]

I have full batten main and lazy jacks. I don’t touch em. The main reason I have them is to keep things simple. I don’t keep them too tight. Head to wind, Leave plenty of slack in the main sheet so that the boom can weather-cock. And I usually don’t have any problems. My sail is on a tides marine track so it goes up pretty fast, that helps too. The less time you linger the less trouble. If it does hang up, no problem just drop it enough to clear and then back up. The call them lazy cause they are supposed to be easier. Mine are combined with a Mac Pack and indeed is much easier.

[Happ]

Many of the newer installations are attaching the top of the Lazy Jacks to the spreaders. That opens up the top making it easier to hoist. Easy.

[philpacket]

Point the boat into the wind.

[W2GL]

I have two boats with lazy jacks. The first is a Marshall 18 catboat, and although the lazy jacks are fixed and tight, the battens never snag. The topping lift is not connected to the end of the boom, instead it is attached forward of the end of the gaff. The topping lift and lazy jacks are always forward of the leech.



The second boat is a Nonsuch 36, and it has a wishbone boom. The lazy jacks hang down from the boom, and form a cradle for the sail when it's down. The sail is hoisted luffing so battens don't catch on the inside of the boom.

[Martkimwat]

I have my lazyjacks attached to two pad-eyes set half way out along the spreaders, so long as I hoist with the mast end of the boom pointing into wind, I've never had a problem. It also means that as the boom swings towards each particular spreader, the lazyjacks on that side, slacken off so you do not need to slacken them so much to prevent them from deflecting the belly of the mainsail. With a bit of careful adjustment, I have now got them such that I never need to slacken or tighten them and they are just set in one place permanently. Works a treat. Will only work though with spreaders that are clamped to the shrouds, as otherwise the downward pull can deflect the spreaders down with disastrous results!

[PeaceLoveMusic]

I use a short piece of shock cord with a snap shackle, and pull the LJ line forward and snap it on to the lazy bag. It moves it about 0.5 metre which is enough for the battens to miss it.

[Stu Jackson]

Lazy Jack Trick
Many folks complain about full battens getting caught up when raising the mainsail. They then spend a lot of time moving BOTH sides of the lazy jacks to the mast.

We developed an easier way with our lazy jacks.

We have a small cleat on the forward starboard side of the boom. When we put the halyard on the headboard, we move ONLY the starboard side of the lazy jacks forward and snug them under the forward side of the horn of this cleat.

Then, when we raise the mainsail, instead of going exactly head to wind, we bear off a tad to starboard so the wind is coming from the port side of the bow.

We then raise the mainsail and it doesn't get hooked on the lazy jacks even though the port side jacks are still there.

Been working for 20 years.

Yes, we have to go forward again to unhook the starboard lazy jack for dousing the sail if I forget to do it right when the main is raised, but there's never any hurry. The drill is: after the main is raised, I unhook that starboard lazy jack, so they're both ready to go when we drop the sails at the end of the day.

So, for those of you with lazy jacks, consider doing only one side.

Your boat, your choice.

[canman]

On our Freedom 39 Pilothouse schooner, we have 2 mains and therefore two sets of lazyjacks making for twice the hoisting fun!
Add to that fun Stackpacks with attached, non-adjustable lazyjacks.

So we do the point up as best as we can with loose sheets to allow the boom to feather into the wind. Then its a game of wait, wait, GO! And hoist as fast as we can by hand the first three battens....then all is good again with the world. Works well 90% of the time.

We can reef and even drop the main on all points of sail (except dead downwind unless it's light) with the feathering the boom into the wind technique