Lazy Jack Separators

[arcadiahunter28]

10 years ago I had a small disaster at sea. I was watching July 4th fireworks from offshore. When I started my engine, the belt on my sea water pump shredded into a million pieces. Didn't have a spare on-board. No problem - we can sail home. But without the engine I couldn't get the boat turned into the wind to easily raise the main and in the dark I didn't notice that a batton caught on my lazy jack and the sail ripped.

Problem, yes, but the CG hauled us in after limping back with the jib only.

Long story short, I attached a pair of low tension spring cord to the pulleys on the lazy jacks and attached the other end to my shroud just under the spreader. The clips are ok and the spring cord has to be replaced every year (requiring me to send somebody up the mast).

Is there a better way to keep the lazy jacks apart to avoid catching the batton?

 

[jssailem]

LazyJacks design has evolved over the years.
I choose to manage my mainsail at the mast. I saw the system on @Hayden Watson boat. His control of the jacks is at the mast, allowing the jacks to be lowered or even pulled forward to the mast before you begin hauling up the main.

My routine has me head into the wind slacken the jacks letting them fall forward away from the sail. Haul up the main without conflict. Then secure the lazy jacks, which can be up in place or stored tight along the boom.

 

[Hayden Watson]

LazyJacks design has evolved over the years.
I choose to manage my mainsail at the mast. I saw the system on @Hayden Watson boat. His control of the jacks is at the mast, allowing the jacks to be lowered or even pulled forward to the mast before you begin hauling up the main.

My routine has me head into the wind slacken the jacks letting them fall forward away from the sail. Haul up the main without conflict. Then secure the lazy jacks, which can be up in place or stored tight along the boom.

Here is the drawing I made for C30 group which is similar to the EZJons drawing I did for @jssailem to use on his boat. Your lengths would be different the idea is the same. Each colored line represents a single piece of rope. The small circles represent SS rings that are sliced to the rope of the same color.

 

[arcadiahunter28]

Here is the drawing I made for C30 group which is similar to the EZJons drawing I did for @jssailem to use on his boat. Your lengths would be different the idea is the same. Each colored line represents a single piece of rope. The small circles represent SS rings that are sliced to the rope of the same color.

View attachment 217252

Impressive. How do you create a bigger gap between the two sides to allow for more room for the mainsail to pass?

 

[jssailem]

Lowering the Lazyjack a bit drops them towards the mast. This lets the battens slide by unobstructed.

You can also try to lower one side and bear off the wind slightly so the main is hoisted towards that one side of the boom.

It is really, in my experience, just the starting of the hoist that is the issue. Once the sail leach is beyond the jacks, your home free.

 

[Hayden Watson]

Impressive. How do you create a bigger gap between the two sides to allow for more room for the mainsail to pass?

The answer to "How do you create a bigger gap between the two sides to allow for more room for the mainsail to pass?" is THERE IS NO GAP TO INCREASE!

The great part about EZJax is that they are only ever up for the few minutes from just before I drop the mainsail until I put on the sail ties before I put the sail cover on. I did not need a special sail cover because the Jax are down when the sail is in storage. To raise the sail, you remove the sail cover and the sail ties and the mainsail drops off to one side of the boom an you hoist it just like you would if there were no Jax because they are stored next to the boom as shown in the second view.

Here is a photo of Papillon sailing with the Jax stowed alongside the boom. I hook the stowed Jax around a horn cleat just in front of the gooseneck and their halyard is on a small cleat just above it. I thread the halyard throgh the eye of the cleat and secure it there with a figure-8 knot. I pull on the knot and line using the cleat as a fairlead and then tie it with a cleat-hitch.

Sail cover on. You can see the stowed EZJax haulyard running up the mast out of the top of the cover.

 

[Tally Ho]

When I raise my mainsail, I typically loosen the main sheet or the traveller lines so I can move the boom to better line up the sail and the gap in the jack lines. If the wind pushed the sail a bit to STB, I move the boom a bit (it actually naturally lines up with the wind).

I also use a Milwaukee right angle drill with a winches bit to raise the sail, and it goes up FAST….since I have the boat lined up into the wind, I can get the sail up and past the jacks very quickly.

I also have an auto pilot, so I can line the boat up into the wind, set the AP to sail to the wind angle, while I put the sail up…again very quickly with the Milwaukee ”electric winch” .

I used to ease the jacks a bit before heading out, but no longer need to do that, unless I want to give the sail some extra belly In light winds.

I don’t know how I could pull all 4 Jack lines (on each side of the boom ) to create a bigger gap.


Greg

 

[Hayden Watson]

When I raise my mainsail, I typically loosen the main sheet or the traveller lines so I can move the boom to better line up the sail and the gap in the jack lines. If the wind pushed the sail a bit to STB, I move the boom a bit (it actually naturally lines up with the wind).

I also use a Milwaukee right angle drill with a winches bit to raise the sail, and it goes up FAST….since I have the boat lined up into the wind, I can get the sail up and past the jacks very quickly.

I also have an auto pilot, so I can line the boat up into the wind, set the AP to sail to the wind angle, while I put the sail up…again very quickly with the Milwaukee ”electric winch” .

I used to ease the jacks a bit before heading out, but no longer need to do that, unless I want to give the sail some extra belly In light winds.

I don’t know how I could pull all 4 Jack lines (on each side of the boom ) to create a bigger gap.


Greg

With the EZJax system, I uncover the main, attach the halyard and untie the sail ties so that the main is free. I then point the boat generally into the wind. Anything less than 70º apparent is fine. I then haul the main to the top without even glancing up the mast to see if anything is fouled because there is nothing there to foul the main.
To drop the main, I go to the mast, untie the cleat hitch, unhook the Jax from their docking cleat, pull in about 8' of slack and re-cleat. Then I blow the main halyard and the sail drops into the Jax fully contained until I have the time to tidy it up and put on the sail ties. I then drop the Jax to the stowed position and put on a standard sail cover.
The simplicity of a traditional hoist with the convenience of jacks to keep the sail on top of the boom.
FWIW, when I built my Pap-Pac, I used the same system so that I drop the sail pack down and roll it up alongside the boom to make it easy to hoist the main but raise them up to catch and cover the main when not sailing.

Here is a photo of my Pap-Pac sail-pack cover when sailing.

 

[Tally Ho]

With the EZJax system, I uncover the main, attach the halyard and untie the sail ties so that the main is free. I then point the boat generally into the wind. Anything less than 70º apparent is fine. I then haul the main to the top without even glancing up the mast to see if anything is fouled because there is nothing there to foul the main.
To drop the main, I go to the mast, until a cleat hitch, unhook the Jax from their docking cleat, pull in about 8' of slack and re-cleat. Then I blow the main halyard and the sail drops into the Jax fully contained until I have the time to tidy it up and put on the sail ties. I then drop the Jax to the stowed position and put on a standard sail cover.
The simplicity of a traditional hoist with the convenience of jacks to keep the sail on top of the boom.
FWIW, when I built my Pap-Pac, I used the same system so that I drop the sail pack down and roll it up alongside the boom to make it easy to hoist the main but raise them up to catch and cover the main when not sailing.

Here is a photo of my Pap-Pac sail-pack cove when sailing.
View attachment 217256

Where do the Jack lines go when you roll up the pack like that? Do you loosen them and draw them all up to the mast area?

That is a very clean looking set up (as I have said before).

Greg

 

[Hayden Watson]

Where do the Jack lines go when you roll up the pack like that? Do you loosen them and draw them all up to the mast area?

That is a very clean looking set up (as I have said before).

Greg

• Note that the end of the halyard is threaded through its dedicated cleat at the mast with a stoper knot so that it cannot take a runner. Very important detail, that!
• I let the Pac halyard fly which lets the Pac fall upside down next to the boom and the lines sag towards the mast.
  
• I gather the lines and pull them towards the mast. The lengths are set up so that they all nest so that only the halyard can reach the mast and that single line is looped around a horn cleat that is at the level of the gooseneck.
  
• I then roll the side of the Pac and the rest of the lines in the center of the roll.
  
  
• I then clip a couple of permanent sail ties that are sewn to the bottom edge of the Pac down each side.
  • I actually have four of these sail ties on each side but for holding the roll, only need the front two.
  • The clips on each of these ties alternate clip and clasp with a long strap on top and a short strap on the bottom.
  • They are set up so that the port and starboard long strap can hook together to make a typical sail tie to hold the sail on the boom if I want to lower the sides. This is handy for repairs, removing the Pac batten and such.
    
  • For the rolled Pac, I loop the long strap over the top of the roll and clip it to the short strap under the roll and draw it tight.
• The final step is to take the slack out of the Pac halyard and retie the cleat hitch so that it is not flapping about.

Most sail packs I have seen can be modified to work this way. The lines are the important part.

• I have for jack line anchor locatoins on each batten which I will refer to as 1 to 4 starting at the aft end.
• The halyard which is the brown line in diagram is terminated with a SS welded ring spliced to the upper end.
• The red line is threaded through the ring in brown and connected to the #1 connection point and has a SS welded ring spliced to the upper end.
• The magenta line is threaded through the ring in red and connected to the #2 connection point and has a SS welded ring spliced to the upper end.
• The blue line is threaded through the ring in magenta and connected to the #3 connection point and the #4 connection point.
• The length of each line is dependent on the locations of the connection points. I tied everything together with a couple of half hitches to make adjustments easy then marked them and made eye splices for the final setup.
  • Attach each line to its correct location with each line longer than needed.
  • Drop the Pac down to the side of the boom and pull the bundle forward to the horn cleat.
  • cleat-hitch the halyard so that the brown line hooks around the cleat with the brown ring 4" along the boom from the horn cleat.
  • Shorten blue so that it holds the magenta ring about 4" from the brown ring.
  • Shorten magenta so that it holds the red ring about 2" from the brown ring.
  • Setting it this way insures that all lines are as long as possible but still allows them to be pull forward without any slack to get into trouble.

 

[arcadiahunter28]

The answer to "How do you create a bigger gap between the two sides to allow for more room for the mainsail to pass?" is
The great part about this type of support is that I only put them up just before I drop the mainsail and take them back down as soon as I put on the sail ties. I did not need a special sail cover because the jax are down when the sail is in storage. To raise the sail, you remove the sail cover and the sail ties and the mainsail drops off to one side of the boom an you hoist it just like you would if there were no jax because they are stored next to the boom as shown in the second view.
The answer to "

That's really clever!

 

[Hayden Watson]

Where do the Jack lines go when you roll up the pack like that? Do you loosen them and draw them all up to the mast area?

That is a very clean looking set up (as I have said before).

Greg

I do appreciate the clean look but the thing that I like best about having the Pac rolled up is the ability to better trim the foot with the outhaul. I have a 12:1 outhaul which make it easy to trim the foot in as tight as I like. The problem I have with trimming is that the clew is held down by a clew slug in the boom groove and it doesn't slide very easy. To ease the outhaul, I need to release the outhaul and pull forward on the foot of the sail to get the slug to slide. With the Pac up, I cannot get hold of the foot so I would never be able to ease the outhaul. I trim the outhaul a lot and find it makes a huge difference in performance. When running or in very light conditions, I will have 16" or more draft depth in the foot for power but will pull it in to about 6" on a beat for pointing.

With the Pac up I cannot even see the foot much less trim it.