Retrofit of Y-26

[HKG214]

Hi all fellows, although I have been owning my Y-26 for over 15 years, recently I planned to retrofit her on both rigging and parts replacement. I have read some threads here which saying that we are still able to order an original parts from Yamaha Japan. Can any fellow can give me some cues about it? In fact, I'll replace the existing tridata system with a new tacktick wifi and solar powered system from Raymarine. Does anyone have any experience about this product? Also, I will install a lazy jack too, does any one can give me any recommendation about it?

Its great to find this forum and knowing your guys all love yamaha sail boats. Thank you in advance for the helps.

 

[siandimi]

Hi - lazyjacks definitely make life afloat much more fun - SailsEast made my bag up for my Y33, "Scrumpy" (also at HHYC). You'll need slugs on the tack of the mainsail so that it can slide down the mast track easily. You will also need a plate to cover the gate on the mast track so that the slugs stay in the track when the sail is stowed in your lazy bag. No experience of Tacktick, but guess they are doing well or Raymarine would not have bought them out... I recommend Dragonmarine (based at HHYC) for any rigging work - they are experts at this. Good luck with the refit.

 

[dee.yeah]

Siandimi, may I ask how did you cover the mast gate for preventing the luff slugs coming out?

If possible, a couple of pictures would be most helpful!

Thx!

 

[HKG214]

Hi - lazyjacks definitely make life afloat much more fun - SailsEast made my bag up for my Y33, "Scrumpy" (also at HHYC). You'll need slugs on the tack of the mainsail so that it can slide down the mast track easily. You will also need a plate to cover the gate on the mast track so that the slugs stay in the track when the sail is stowed in your lazy bag. No experience of Tacktick, but guess they are doing well or Raymarine would not have bought them out... I recommend Dragonmarine (based at HHYC) for any rigging work - they are experts at this. Good luck with the refit.

Hi Siandimi, do you mean a plate fixed near the bottom of mast track to prevent the exiting of slugs? May I have a closer pic of the plate too? Thank you so much. As for the Tacktick, it will be installed few weeks later. Maybe we can deliberate more about it at the club later.

 

[jnovie]

Hi Siandimi, do you mean a plate fixed near the bottom of mast track to prevent the exiting of slugs? May I have a closer pic of the plate too? Thank you so much. As for the Tacktick, it will be installed few weeks later. Maybe we can deliberate more about it at the club later.

I have a gate on my Yamaha 26 similar to the one that has been described. A second option is installing a stop in the track itself. Most marine hardware stores have them. It nicely made, easy to use, works very well, costs only $10 and no holes have to be drilled. Personally I like using the gate strap as there is less stuff to fumble with:
http://www.westmarine.com/webapp/wc...61_-1____ProductDisplayErrorView#.UFlDAo7A5UQ.


I have uploaded a portion of my mainsail cover and the relationship of the lazy jacks to the cover. When I drop my sail at the end of the day I carefully flake the sail and put sail ties around it. I then loosen the lazy jacks just enough so that they barely just come out of the bottom of the sail cover and lay gently on the side of the sail cover. This way you don't have to make any modifications to the sail cover which to me is an annoyance. The last thing I do is reach up as high as I can and tie a small diameter bungie cord around all of the lines which keeps them together when then wind comes up. I have had zero chafe with this system which I have used over the last 3-years. I had my mainsail cover made larger so that I could take bigger and less folds which keeps the sail looking good even after prolonged periods of not being used now and then

Lazy jacks have worked efficiently for me and as others have remarked made mainsail handling tasks far easier. Once you have installed the system per Harken's diagram, mark the control lines at the cleat so that they are always set at the optimum length. If the lazy jacks are too loose they can wrap around the spreader. If they are too tight they will interfere with sail shape. Talk to some of the other owners at you harbor to see how they "tweaked" their installation.

 

[siandimi]

I don't have a picture of my rig to hand, but attached is a generic picture of some thin stainless steel plates fixed to a mast track opening - the objective of the gate is to close the gap so that the slugs don't pop out while allowing them to pass smoothly to the bottom of the track.

You'll need to have the plates custom made and taps threaded into the mast for the screws: the rigger that installs your lazy bag set-up can do all this for you relatively inexpensively. I recall paying something in the order of HK$5000 for the lazy bag, jacks and installation, including the stainless gate - suggest that you ask Sails East (grahamyoung@sailseast.com) and Dragon Marine (franciskirstein@gmail.com) for quotes.

Note that the downside of using only the Sail Track Stops would mean that the bottom slug could only be lowered as far as the top of the opening in the mast track, which depending on the size of the rig, could be quite high off the boom? This could compromise the functionality of the lazy bag set-up...

Cheers
Simon

 

[siandimi]

PS: with my set-up, I unzip the bag, clip on the main halyard and hoist. 2 minutes. 1 minute in reverse as sail flakes itself away in the bag. In each case, all you need to ensure is that you are head-to-wind so that the battens don't catch in the jack lines...that's why it's called "lazy"...