Lazyjack Rigging Design

[Filkee]

There is kind of a blind leading the blind factor in all of this in that each boat is a little different and the behavior of each sail is a little different. I asked my local sail loft (LOVE Bill Fastiggi at Vermont Sailing Partners) and he made me a little kit. I installed most of it myself and then 30 minutes of crane time at the shipyard because vertigo.

 

[Pete the Cat]

My new boat has lazy jacks and I'm already thinking about converting to a dutchman system next season. Dutchman system is just so easy to use.

I have both systems. My Tartan has lazy jacks and the Ericson has the Dutchman. Each has its advantage. The Dutchman system "fish lines" will degrade if left in the sun for long periods and it is a PIA to buckle the sail cover around them. i solved both problems by disconnecting the Dutchman topping lift (use the main halyard to hold the boom up) and sticking the whold business into the sail before putting the sail cover on. The fish line is not in the sun and the main cover is easy to put on. With the lazy jacks on my Tartan, I just release them after gasketing the sail, put the cover on and leave them just slack--they are attached on the bottom of the boom only, so there is no need to modify the sail cover. I like the ease of the Dutchman system as it stacks perfectly. Maybe the lazy jacks would have done so if I had engineered it better, but I still end up chasing the leech of the sail to stack and secure it. FWIW.

 

[Christian Williams]

This is my third time modifying this sail cover to get the lazyjacks right. I make stack packs seem the answer to everything.

 

[David Grimm]

Christian, I built my new lazy jacks as close to yours as possible without being able to measure each of your lines. They came out pretty good. However I attached the lines to the bottom of the boom. This allows the sail cover to fit quite nicely. The lazy jack lines actually hold the sailcover in place. I may double up the material of the cover where the lines touch just for added chafe protection.

 

[Christian Williams]

That gets my attention. I studied the half-dozen lazyjack covers at my marina and didn't see any like that

It certainly would solve the issue, although my sail cover hangs down quite a lot and would require another revision.

 

[Pete the Cat]

I have the same arrangement an it works well. No need to work around the lines when putting the cover on.

 

[Randy Rutledge]

My lazy Jack upper lines were through cheek blocks on the mast and worked like a halyard allowing dropping the lazy jacks while sailing or installing sail cover. I used a caterpillar to secure the sail on the boom.

 

[Christian Williams]

With today's slippery Spectra line, blocks are no longer needed for lazyjacks. The line will go through any sort of thimble with just about no resistance or threat of chafe.

 

[p.gazibara]

I agree with the dyneema/spectra option. We installed lazy jacks on Cinderella in 2017. I used 2-3mm dyneema, can't remember exactly the size, but think shoelace. It's really small and plenty strong enough for the job. I have T-ball fittings in my mast for running backstays and just passed the dyneema through the loop that the runners attach to (no blocks the dyneema is slippery enough. I spliced them to small low friction rings as per Guy's article, but lazyness caused at least one of those low friction rings to be tied on, and the bowline is still holding....

On the boom, I added small padeyes on the bottom at distances similar to Guy's article that the lazy jacks splice onto. The idea was, put them on the bottom in case the boom was to hit someone on a gybe, less change of a "blunt edge" sticking out of the side of the boom to hurt someone. Might be a moot point though, the boom itself could do lots of damage.

The lazy jacks go up from the boom though the tball ring and down to small cleats on the mast roughly at the same height as the gooseneck. The slipperyness of the dyneema never presented an issue on the cleats. When I want to put them away, I just undo the line on the cleat, tuck the lazyjack line from the boom under the cleat and then use the bitter end to cleat it off. Lazy jacks are out of the way. This is done when I put the sailcover on after the sail has beentied down.

Adding them made a huge difference for us being short handed. Our main has no sail cars, just a bolt rope that feeds into a track in the mast, so when the sail comes down, the luff is completely detached and the lazy jacks really help contain it from flopping onto the deck.

I normally leave them a bit loose when sailing so that I can make sail adjustments without the lazy jacks interfering with the sail/boom angle. I do not put them away when hoisiting the sail just leave them slightly loose, it is nice to have something to hold the sail as it's getting hoisted. Since I normally hoist the main at anchor or on a mooring, the boat held nicely into the wind and I don't have to worry much about the battens getting caught up on the lazy jacks. I have to pay attention to the battens not geting hung up on the runners anyway, so the lazyjacks aren't much different.

When the sail is reefed, the lazy jacks hold the excess sail up out of the way, so I don't have to add sail ties to the cringles which is another benefit. Just have to remember to leave the jazy jacks a little loose, those with topping lifts have to do this anyway.

 

[G Kiba]

I have been contemplating building in a weak link into my dyneema lazy jacks and foreguy spin pole bridle. The strength of even the smaller diameter dyneema is my concern as I am attached to padeyes and existing bolted locations. While truly unlikely I have had a close call when leaving a marina with mainsheet eased and boom out getting the lazy jacks snagged on something unexpected. Back then the line was NOT dyneema and broke quickly. Not sure if the dyneema would break before breaking something else.

Have also heard of spin poles (carbon fiber) breaking on a broach in the water because of the bridles being too strong. While i don't intentionally put up the kite in that kind of whether, Whether seems to happen after the kite goes up - just like rain after washing your car. And no! I have never broached the boat in moderate winds several times!

Thinking of incorporating plastic wire ties strategically located between the eye splice and padeye for the lazy jacks and maybe a loop of nautical braid at pole ends. Do you think I am safeguarding against one of those "you don't know what you don't know" situations?

 

[ConchyDug]

This is what I do with the lazy jacks before or after the main is hoisted depends on how I'm feeling that day. I have a clam cleat instead of horn makes adjustment fast.
On spin poles snapping, would an undersized rope clutch work as a fuse?

 

[p.gazibara]

In

I have been contemplating building in a weak link into my dyneema lazy jacks and foreguy spin pole bridle. The strength of even the smaller diameter dyneema is my concern as I am attached to padeyes and existing bolted locations. While truly unlikely I have had a close call when leaving a marina with mainsheet eased and boom out getting the lazy jacks snagged on something unexpected. Back then the line was NOT dyneema and broke quickly. Not sure if the dyneema would break before breaking something else.

Have also heard of spin poles (carbon fiber) breaking on a broach in the water because of the bridles being too strong. While i don't intentionally put up the kite in that kind of whether, Whether seems to happen after the kite goes up - just like rain after washing your car. And no! I have never broached the boat in moderate winds several times!

Thinking of incorporating plastic wire ties strategically located between the eye splice and padeye for the lazy jacks and maybe a loop of nautical braid at pole ends. Do you think I am safeguarding against one of those "you don't know what you don't know" situations?

Interesting, I have raced on a large performance cat and the owner had "fuses" in his rigging to protect against the boat lifting a hull/etc. The sheets for example would break before such a load. Same with the tack on the asym.

Only probelm was, they tended to blow during the race because they wore out over time (UV), not because we were close to such a load. Then we would be scrambling to douse the sail/force a tack/gybe.

On Cinderella's spin pole, we only have the spin pole foreguy on the front of the pole, same with the pole lift, and I would not want that held on with zip ties. We have the pole setup for the dip method when gybing. (Hoist the inboard end on the track, drop the pole lift until it can swin ingside the forestay and the reverse on the other side. It's how the boat came and I never had an issue with it. We have broached pretty violently racing with it up before, nothing broke, but we were probably lucky. If it were zip tied on, I could see a scenario where it could come down on a foredeck crew's head. I'd prefer to break the pole... Who flys symetricals anymore anyway? Asyms on a prod make things much easier!

On lazy jacks, I can see the thin dyneema potentially becoming a saw and cutting through something if it get loaded funny. I initially used a small diameter dyneema soft shackle on the blocks for my runners, and coming across the pacific, the dyneema acutally cut through the block's SS connection point. I probably should have girth hitched it to spread the load out better. I have since swapped them for larger diameter dyneema loops with low friction rings. An option would be to seize the dyneema to the boom with some light duty line that would break prior to something else.

The dyneema cutting issue exists with kite surfing line when you use the safety system on most kite bars. All of the load from the kite gets concentrated on a single line and thus the kite depowers itself and drops to the water. Every now and then a wind gust will lift the kite and partially load it while the user is scrambling to haul in on that single small dyneema line. If you wrap that line around your hand (big no-no) and the kite takes off, you can seriously injure yourself (maybe even cut a finger off).

 

[Christian Williams]

To a tiresome degree have I analyzed my own use of lazyjacks. I wound up leaving them up all the time, and a slotted sail cover.

Here are the comparative sequences.

Remove sail cover in slip . In channel, remove a few sail ties and hoist.

Lazyjacks then catch sail for all daysail reefs, meaning I don't have to do anything or leave the cockpit.

When returning to slip, lower sail into lazyjacks. No sail ties, no sail falling on guest heads, no need to leave the cockpit.

In slip, rehoist sail and lower in control so the folds are neat and alternate. (New sail, I didn't use to bother. Lazyjacks really help)

Add a few sail ties to shape lie of mainsail on boom, then sail cover on.

I tried rigging and unrigging lazyjacks each time, which has the benefit of not requiring slots in the sail cover. But it adds procedures, and you must do it before lowering sail on return or the sail falls off the boom. It also means the sail must be sustained on the boom with many sail ties before sail cover put on.

It's hard to say which is better. My case is dominated by "singlehanding," by which I mean, in my world, there may be eight people on the boat but none is familiar enough with the boat, or sailing, to actually help (explaining how-to slows everything down, and even simple nautical terminology seems to confound guests and freeze them like deer on railroad tracks. )

"The lazyjack is fouled on a batten, slack the mainsheet, I'll head up, no, lower the sail a little, jiggle it, try slacking the vang, no, look at the mainsheet, it's fouled, the mainsheet is the line that controls the boom, the boom, the boom, that thing, yes! Slack it and then, no no take it right off the winch, and you'll need two hands, so you'll have to put down the beer, no don't put it there, it'll fall over, look at the foul, do you see it? The foul--I just mean the line is is is is is tangled, it's caught, right? Fouled! Nothing to do with that seagull! Foul with a "u"! No, Tracy, I am not yelling at people, I never yell at people! I'll clear the foul myself, no problem, excuse me, don't let me step on your hands, you'll have to move, Alphonso, scoot over, Alphonso! I need to put my foot where your hand is!"

Perhaps not everyone has these problems.

 

[jtsai]

Replace the lower half of the lazy jack lines with elastic cord (shown in the picture). Gather the leeward side lines (or both sides) to the boom reefing horn cleat(s) when raising sail and release once done, no adjustments needed. I raise the main sail initially at the mast and complete the last few feet in the cockpit so this sequence works well.

The whisker pole in the photo is not bent, it was iPhone's panoramic distortion to simulate wide angle view.

 

[K2MSmith]

To a tiresome degree have I analyzed my own use of lazyjacks. I wound up leaving them up all the time, and a slotted sail cover.

Here are the comparative sequences.

Remove sail cover in slip . In channel, remove a few sail ties and hoist.

Lazyjacks then catch sail for all daysail reefs, meaning I don't have to do anything or leave the cockpit.

When returning to slip, lower sail into lazyjacks. No sail ties, no sail falling on guest heads, no need to leave the cockpit.

In slip, rehoist sail and lower in control so the folds are neat and alternate. (New sail, I didn't use to bother. Lazyjacks really help)

Add a few sail ties to shape lie of mainsail on boom, then sail cover on.

I tried rigging and unrigging lazyjacks each time, which has the benefit of not requiring slots in the sail cover. But it adds procedures, and you must do it before lowering sail on return or the sail falls off the boom. It also means the sail must be sustained on the boom with many sail ties before sail cover put on.

It's hard to say which is better. My case is dominated by "singlehanding," by which I mean, in my world, there may be eight people on the boat but none is familiar enough with the boat, or sailing, to actually help (explaining how-to slows everything down, and even simple nautical terminology seems to confound guests and freeze them like deer on railroad tracks. )

"The lazyjack is fouled on a batten, slack the mainsheet, I'll head up, no, lower the sail a little, jiggle it, try slacking the vang, no, look at the mainsheet, it's fouled, the mainsheet is the line that controls the boom, the boom, the boom, that thing, yes! Slack it and then, no no take it right off the winch, and you'll need two hands, so you'll have to put down the beer, no don't put it there, it'll fall over, look at the foul, do you see it? The foul--I just mean the line is is is is is tangled, it's caught, right? Fouled! Nothing to do with that seagull! Foul with a "u"! No, Tracy, I am not yelling at people, I never yell at people! I'll clear the foul myself, no problem, excuse me, don't let me step on your hands, you'll have to move, Alphonso, scoot over, Alphonso! I need to put my foot where your hand is!"

Perhaps not everyone has these problems.

I’ve had no problems with retractable lazy jacks and a standard sail cover with no extra slots or snaps . It takes me maybe 2-3 min to unhook then and hoist them . I’ve been doing this at the dock before I leave ( when I take the sail cover off ) . I think also could be done when the main comes down. ( advantages and disadvantages there ). Only complaint I have is that my main doesn’t fold very well and it leaves a mess on the top of the boom . I think the problem is a combination of a new main and the jacks being of only a 2 level design. So definitely need to reflake the sail at the dock. .I use 3-4 sail ties on 300 sq ft main .