Mainsail Handling >>> Furl Boom or ? Agonizing...

[Rick D]

40', fractionally rigged, full battens, shorthanded sailing. OK, so I am having a dilemma... what to do for the mainsail on my 22 year-old boat. Originally, it came with a Dutchman system. It was converted to a type of stack-pack. The original mainsail was a PITA and the current one (loose-footed) is worse since the clew and reefing reinforcement patches are really rugged and don't fold at all (good and bad news). Added articulating batten receivers which helped a significantly. Got rid of the stack-pack since it ate zippers and the main tangled too much up[ and down. (May have been poorly engineered.) Anyhow, it's time to do some recommissioning and this is on my list. Thinking A) stay with the retractable lazy jacks I currently have but go to a 2+2 batten main with the bottom two partial, B) try another stack pack from a different manufacturer, C) modify the boom for a tubular shelf in the last half and stay with the lazy jacks and full battens (i.e. Park Avenue boom) D) go for broke and get a furling boom (and new main) or E) suck it up and stick with what I have.
Mainsail handling is the biggest disincentive to short daysails. Additionally, it is about 45 minutes to an hour to put the sail away single handed. And, that's with effort. However, the reefing is effective, the sail doesn't flog, the mainsail cover doesn't just hang ugly and add windage like the stack-pack knock-off, and the sail has good adjustablility for optimizing trim. That, and I'm old.
I guess my biggest reservation is if I am going to get enough benefit from a change to be worth the effort (and money of course). Everyone I know who converted to a furling boom had a sorting-out period requiring recuts (of the new sail), modifications and tweaking. They were ultimately satisfied however, although one was not and removed it. I don't know anyone with a stack-pack type, but many Cats have them and maybe 2/3'ds of the boats in the Med, so someone likes them... I have only seen a couple of boats with the boom modified to the Park Avenue style and I didn't talk to the owners. That only resolves the droopy main-when-dropped issue tho; you still have to fight the cover.
Anyhow, I don't expect much from this post. I think I have the pluses and minuses figured out. But I have moved no closer to a decision. Curious about your opinion.

 

[Joe]

I'd go with A. And also start recruiting crew.

 

[weinie]

Takes me all of 3 minutes solo to drop and flake my main into my stack pack.
The simple trick I found to raising the sail with the jacks:
Stand at the mast and hoist the sail there... tail the halyard as you go by bring it forward with you after doing a 180degree turn around the winch. Let your body weight do the work....easier than cranking a winch!
Wait a few secs till the wind eases and his dead forward. That avoids most of the hang-ups. If a batten does gets hung up on a lazy jack line, ease a bit, take a step back, and physically guide the leach with one hand as you tug the halyard with the other. Once the batten passes, resume hoisting full speed unless the next batten looks like it's gonna get snagged.
Once the sail is as high as you can get it, STEP on the halyard as you walk back... now your hand are fee and you can clean up the slack, throw a few turns around the winch and grind the rest of the way.
Of course, sheet and vang should be fully off. If the boom is not pointing into the wind because of friction, help it out.

 

[DougM]

I would still vote for a properly designed stack pack. It never takes me more than a few minutes to get the sail down, flaked, and zipped up. If the sail nests properly in the pack, it shouldn't put so much strain on the zipper that it fails. I have had some stitching fail after ten years due to sun rot, but never a zipper.
The issue with the battens getting caught in the lazy jack lines can be remedied by keeping the boat pointed into the wind or close enough that the flogging is minimal when hoisting the sail. This also keeps the sail slugs from binding in the mast track. Finally, cut off the ends of the battens so that they don't stick out beyond the leech. That way they can't hang up.

 

[reworb]

I've had both a Dutchman system and two Stackpacks ( On two boats). I would definitely go with another Stackpack both of mine have worked pretty much flawlessly. Takes only a couple of minutes to put it away. When a sail and Stackpack is new you need to "train" the sail to go in, in other words it needs to develop a fold memory, how it is stacked, once you get it in the cover several times it goes right in and only needs minimal straightening, a minute or two. I can not imagine why yours is so problematic. Perhaps a Battcar system (Harken, Ronstat etc) would help although they are very expensive. I had a Sail Track system from Tides Marine on my last boat and that made the sail go up and down so easy, when I get new a new sail I'm going to have that installed on my current boat. https://www.tidesmarine.com/index.php?route=product/category&path=363

 

[weinie]

I've had both a Dutchman system and two Stackpacks ( On two boats). I would definitely go with another Stackpack both of mine have worked pretty much flawlessly. Takes only a couple of minutes to put it away. When a sail and Stackpack is new you need to "train" the sail to go in, in other words it needs to develop a fold memory, how it is stacked, once you get it in the cover several times it goes right in and only needs minimal straightening, a minute or two. I can not imagine why yours is so problematic. Perhaps a Battcar system (Harken, Ronstat etc) would help although they are very expensive. I had a Sail Track system from Tides Marine on my last boat and that made the sail go up and down so easy, when I get new a new sail I'm going to have that installed on my current boat. https://www.tidesmarine.com/index.php?route=product/category&path=363

I don't worry too much about how the sail drops into the pack. As long as you are not putting creases in the sail, gentle folds shouldn't matter too much. I usually guide the sail down a bit so that I do the left/right flake at the mast, but aft, I just pull on the leach here and there to make sure the sail lays nicely before I zip the bag up.

 

[Rich Stidger]

Rick,

You already know where I stand.
http://forums.sailboatowners.com/index.php?threads/boom-furling-do-you-like-it.173570/#post-1228840
However it IS a lot of money, most of which you will never recover from a boat sale. But for single handling/short crew and ease of operation boom furling is excellent. My wife and I sail together but I am the one who does all the heavy lifting. Deploy/retrieve the sails, trimming head and main, raise/lower anchor, launch/retrieve the dinghy, etc. She helps but is not strong enough for most of the tasks, so I am kind of single-handling with some help.

 

[Scott T-Bird]

Before considering a furling boom, I think I would purchase a Park Ave boom (rather than modify an existing boom). I would bet that fitting the cover afterwards should be pretty simple with a cover fitted to the boom with tracks. Of course, that would be going all-out in terms of price, but I would guess it would give you the best in terms of sail trim, reefing, and convenience. That's what money is for, after all (if I'm spending yours )! I checked out this from Southern Spars ... the Veelux may be more suited to your large mainsail size. http://www.southernspars.com/spars/booms/

 

[Stu Jackson]

Old guys like me think a good lazy jack and stack pack arrangement are the most cost effective approach. If ya got oodles of $$$, get new hardware. Otherwise...

Lots of good stuff has been written about the Mack Pack as compared to Doyle, and I have a friend who made his own, very successfully, from the Sail Rite kit. You didn't share too many details of what you didn't like about yours.

As for raising the main, weinie "kinda" got it right, but his method is one I used for a while and then improved upon. Put a small cleat on your mast (if you don't have a winch) and raise the main from there, tail the halyard around the cleat a few times, go back to the cockpit and pull the halyard in, go back to the mast and undo it from the small cleat, back to the cockpit to complete the raising of the main from the cabintop winch. It takes longer to type than to do. A MAJOR improvement on that is to install a cam cleat on the mast instead of the cleat.

Rich, you've been around here a looong time, you must have seen one of my earlier posts with this advice:


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 18 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.

 

[Rich Stidger]

Stu- Nice Lazy Jack Trick!

 

[capta]

I have not MET one single person sailing with a boom furling system that is happy with it. And I've talked to cruisers on 40 to 55 foot boats and crew members on the mega-yachts. The biggest complaint is that often someone must be at the mast to insure the slides go on or up properly. Less than 5% of the monohulls down this way have boom furling, whereas perhaps 35 to 40% have inmast.
If you do some looking around you could find a used inmast furling system at a good price, either off a storm damaged boat or one from someone who just couldn't get the hang of using it, or bought a boat to race.
A few points for inmast, especially for short handed sailing; INFINITE REEFING. You can have up exactly the correct amount of sail up for the conditions. You can reef, raise or lower sail on almost any point of sail. No reason to come up into the wind and flog your sails to death.
No sail covers. Time to go sailing, after all is stowed below, raise anchor (in our case) or drop the dock lines/mooring pendant and you can raise sail. It's that easy.
See other threads on here about rf mains for more information.

 

[CloudDiver]

As much as I love the concept and look of a Park Ave boom, I have never seen one made of anything other than carbon... so my guess is they would cost even more than a boom furling set up.

 

[Sailor Sue]

Rick,

Three years ago we bought a J/32 with a Leisure Furl boom. The first couple of times I saw the listing I quit reading when I saw that the boat had in-boom furling. Eventually I read the rest of the listing and saw how well equiped the boat was. My first question to the broker was if the owner still had the original boom, figuring if we bought the boat the first thing we would do would be to swap booms.

We ended up buying the boat in Maine and sailing it back to Lake Erie. By the time we got home we decided the Leisure Furl was much better than we expected. Now, three years, and around 6000 miles later, the Leisure Furl is still on the boat.

The only critical point is having the boom at the correct angle when rolling the sail in. We have a mark on a topping lift that sets the right angle. The sail has full roach for maximum sail area. You can reef to any point on the sail, though they recommend reefing to one of the battens. By playing with halyard tension and furling line tension you can change the draft of the sail. In the event of a furler issue - we haven't had any - you can still lower the sail just like a conventional sail (assuming gravity still works). We can have our sail furled and the cover pulled on while most other boats are still flaking their mains.

I don't think we would have spent the money to change to a Leisure Furl on a 32 foot boat, but all our friends who have sailed on the boat, even the racers, are quite impressed. (I also like it better than the Schafer boom furler that our friend has on his Catalina 40.)

 

[Rich Stidger]

I have not MET one single person sailing with a boom furling system that is happy with it.

Ha! Capta, let me introduce myself. I very much like the Schaefer Boom Furling system that I have used for two years. I think boom furlers have many advantages over the in-mast systems, but as Stu says, "Your boat, your choice". My only regret is not installing the system 15 years ago.

 

[capta]

Ha! Capta, let me introduce myself. I very much like the Schaefer Boom Furling system that I have used for two years. I think boom furlers have many advantages over the in-mast systems, but as Stu says, "Your boat, your choice". My only regret is not installing the system 15 years ago.

I've read of some who like boom furling on here and other forums, but as I said, I've yet to actually talk to anyone face to face who has.
All I can do is repeat first hand knowledge, not he/she posted.
Say your piece to the OP not me, or sail down and we'll discuss it over a beverage at the local watering hole.

 

[Gunni]

I hoist and drop a fully battened mainsail from a Neil Pryde "lazy bag" within the comfort of the cockpit. A couple of improvements to consider: StrongTrack by Tides Marine to take the friction out of the luff, AND move your lazy jacks outboard onto your spreaders to open the throat of you system and allow more room for the sail. My sail goes right up, and when I kick loose the halyard clutch, the sail drops and flakes into the bag. If I have her dead to wind it is a think of effortless beauty. I only adjust my bag if I am on a long sail and want to lash it down and neat.

Make sure your bag zipper has a suncover flap and lube your zipper at the end of every season. I have a messenger line on the zipper pull that allows me to zip the bag closed standing at the mast.

 

[NotCook]

No reason to come up into the wind and flog your sails to death.

Hey Capta, sounds like you're obviously happy with your in mast furling system, but I'll give you one VERY good reason to always come into the wind before reefing. On a passage 2 years ago from Newport, RI to Bermuda, I was asleep in a forward cabin of a Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 52 DS (wearing full gear, including pfd and tether - the boat pounded on waves so hard I was afraid it would split open while I was sleeping!), when at about 2 AM ships time I heard what sounded like a shotgun blast. I was in the cockpit in about 5 seconds and saw the two relatively less experienced watch crewmen with a deer in the headlights look on their faces. I asked them what happened. The wind had gotten up to about 40-45kts, and they, prudently, decided that we needed to reef some more. The slackened the outhaul and pushed the button on the BIG electric winch to pull in some of the main. They didn't head up first. Not sure if the bank was the extruding the fitting out of the bottom of the boom, or when it slammed into the base of the mast against the block leading back to the cockpit. The fitting had held a block that guided the line more or less perpendicular to the furler in the mast. Not it was a knot at the base of the mast and furler and we had no way to reef, let alone furl, that big main. In the end, we decided to go on deck, in BIG waves, and night, and lash the block to the bottom of the book so we could head up before furling the entire sail and sail the rest of the trip with either full main or no main, not relying on the lashing to support a partially reefed sail. All the while, enjoying 40-45kt winds. As much as those big electric winches were nice, one has to remember that you don't get a good sense of just how hard they are pulling as you are just pushing your finger down on a button. But, the bottom line was, they needed to head up to take the load off of the sail before attempting to reef it. Just our experience, but one I won't soon forget.

 

[capta]

I'll give you one VERY good reason to always come into the wind before reefing.

First off, I wouldn't let one, two or ten "relatively less experienced watch crewmen" do any reefing without me being there, ON DECK. That's my JOB as captain, is it not?
Second, our main is either reefed by it's own, internal electric motor or a manual crank, so I can't see this happening.
Thirdly, this is once again OPERATOR error, the biggest problem with inmast furling, or any other system being operated by those who aren't experienced enough or lack some common sense.
I have furled the main sail in 70 knots of wind at night on this boat, between Newport and Bermuda in the kind of seas one would expect in that kind of blow, and neither flogged the sail, nor had any problems. We often reef in gale force winds in the channels down here without ever heading up into the wind.
To each his/her own, but I enjoy the fact that I do not have my nice new mainsail needlessly flogging the life out of itself every time I want to reef or furl. I have both a sheet and an outhaul to keep the main sail under control. I only wish the headsails would furl with as little flogging, but I've yet to find a way to pull in the Yankee with a 3/8" furling line against a 7/8" sheet, even with Lewmar electric 65's.

 

[NotCook]

I only wish the headsails would furl with as little flogging, but I've yet to find a way to pull in the Yankee with a 3/8" furling line against a 7/8" sheet, even with Lewmar electric 65's.

Yeah, I hear that!

And, you're probably right that they should have awakened the captain (wasn't me). I had to roust the captain - how he slept through it is beyond me! I was just relating our experience. As I prefaced my story, your experience is obviously different.

Fair winds.

 

[Rick D]

Update: I decided to go with option B... a stack-pack type clamshell sail cover. I'm doing a lot of re-commissioning projects on the boat and my budget is $25k which a furling boom would pretty much eat and leave little for other things. Report to follow in the spring. There is a love / hate relationship on all these mainsail systems, so I'll go with the less risky from a financial standpoint.