Help! H420 Lazy Jack and Sail Management

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Dan

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Jul 26, 2006
190
Hunter 420 Stamford
Hi all. Any thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I recently bought a '99 H420 with a Lazy Jack system. Second only to a furling main, I thought lazy jacks were supposed to make sail management a breeze! Instead, it's a real ordeal. It's hard to reach the sail on the boom because the boom is about 8 feet off the aft deck, and the bimini prevents reaching the boom amidship. So flaking the sail is incredibly difficult, and zipping the sail cover is equally so. What I do now is drop the sail and wait till I'm in port. I use a stepstool and slowly work my way from back to front. It takes forever and wears me out. I'm not new to sailing, or flaking a sail. But managing the sail with the center cockpit configuration really takes the wind out of my sails! Also, because of the center cockpit configuration I can't see the shape of the main or the wind indicator at the top of the mast. Is a window in the bimini the only solution? (well, I toyed with rigging a closed circuit tv system, by my wife put the kabosh on that one ;o) ). Any help would be appreciated. Fair winds and following seas!
 
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Tom Cooper

lazy jacks

I had a real problem with my V32 Big main 420 Sq feet 18 ft boom.I bit the bullet and bought a U.K stack pack.Life is 75% easier now, So keep your eyes open for a boat with a stack pack and check it out we are very pleased with our results. Good luck Tom cooper v32 Prologue
 
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Pat

sail handleing

Dan, OUR BOAT IS A h430, NOT A CENTER COCKPIT, BUT I've SAILED ON A FRIENDS 42CC and our problem is similar. Since our boat is a '95 it has one of the 'first generation' stack-pack covers, and it is a pain. We are changing the type of cover from the original one that was a 'bag' that even went over the WHOLE BOOM, to a more usable cover that starts at the top of the groove on the boom. They did not have enough lines from the mast (or spreaders) to the top battens in the cover, so it always hung very low at the aft end of the boom, and often didn't catch the entire sail. We are correcting some of this by adding lines from the aft end of the 'bag' to about a foot to 18" up the topping lift. this appears to have solved the drooping end problem and it is catching the whole sail now. I have also tied on an additional 3 or 4 ft of cord to the zipper (we just put in a new 19' zipper) on the top and it is a bit easier to coax along now. It is still a pain in the butt, but I think it is easier than trying to put a 'normal' cover on after each sail. My friend always has to bring his boom out to one side to put his cover on, at least with the 'stack-pack' we don't have to do that. And by the way, for as comfortable as your boat is, you SHOULD have to put up with at least a little inconvenience. Pat
 
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