Lazy jacks or what?

[wragges]

During the summer we rafted to a Dutch yacht that had a kind of lazy jack systemthat I had not seen previously, and was wondering what you thought about it.

Instead of the cats-cradle affair either side of the main, he had a single set of thin nylon lines leading from the boom to the topping-lift at various points. Each line appeared to be fed through the sail at the reefing points. I assume this would cause the sail to concertina either side of the nylon lines?

If so, is this arrangement any good, or indeed better than the conventional method. It certainly looked neater and less unsightly.
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[TigaWave]

Its a Dutchman flaking system.
I've sailed on a Santa Cruz 70 with this set up, it works in that the sail falls neatly flaked, but it did seem to cause wear, as the eyelets wear the line cut into the sail. The lines are always right next to the sail cloth whilst sailing so they may also chafe on any stitching, it could just be that the boat had very old sails but some wear was definately down to the flaking lines.

 

[Hardley]

Yes it is known as The Dutchman System, popular in Holland and USA.
Ive had it for 12 years now and still think it is a good system.
Don't know if its sold in UK any more.
Yes the lines do wear in time, but I just replace them with line from chandlers, line does make a black line on sail, but it washes off OK.
PM me if you would like to see installation sheet.
Norm