Lazyjacks, battens and dropping the main

pagoda

pagoda

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I occasionally see a mainsail being dropped (tidily) in about 3 microseconds, and have to say I'm somewhat jealous.

They tend to be "newer" boats, but the sails seem to self flake like a
pack of cards - with minimal human intervention.:rolleyes:
On a few times over this summer I would dearly like to have got the main away quicker- in windy lumpy conditions it's not a lot of fun flaking sail on the boom. I rarely sail other than with 2 of us on board, so can't just delegate it all....
The main is not new, has 4 battens about 1 to 1.5m long.

I think a fully battened main would drop and self stack more readily, but having a fair bit of experience of fully battened dinghy sails I think a fully battned yacht sail might be a little tricky to handle, being difficult to de-power.

I've experimented with differing amounts of slack in the lazyjacks -but that does not appear to make any difference. Also dry lubricated the sliders.
Replace all sliders??

Any suggestions to encourage mainsail self-flaking?

Graeme
 
Always tricky with ordinary sail slides as the stick compared with the free running batten cars on fully battened sails. One solution is a light downhaul on the headboard.
 
We have four fully length battens without fancy ball bearing slides (they are slides that just fit into the mast groove) full lazyjacks and a stack pack. Its a masthead rig and has everything lead back to the cockpit.

I usually give the slides a spray with teflon lubricant once a year.

If we flake the main halyard out on the cockpit floor so that its ready to run and come head to wind, the mainsail stows itself in the stack pack in about a second or so. I very rarely have to got and pull anything more than the last metre of the head of the sail into the stack pack and this is done very easily.

So I don't think you need fancy ball bearing slides, but you do need to attend to friction. You also need to be head to wind - or at least into the wind enough that there is NO pressure of wind forcing the mainsail against the lazy jacks when you push the clutch holding the halyard wide open.

The biggest bit of clearing up I have to do is in tidying up the reefing pennants that invariably don't fall neatly into the stack pack - but I just stand on our aft deck and flip them inside.

Hope that this description helps? Is there anything else you need to know about the system?
 
The plain white plastic slides tend to develop more friction over time. I put it down to aluminium fines getting jammed into the slider and slider wear.

I have found that the silicon spray reduces the friction significantly but it takes a few applications and hoists to get back to slippy sliders.

As far as instant flaking is considered, without full batons its not likely. Try pulling back the reefing pendents and then flaking the 3 big folds.
 
Mine is just as JMUK described.

Having bought a fully battened main for the first time this year I do not find it difficult to depower. It certainly sets better in light airs and behaves much better when dropping. As well as spraying the sliders with McLube I also spray the mast groove. Don't forget to let off the mainsheet so the boom finds the best position in the breeze.
 
I just add one thing to the above, get head to wind as closely as possible, let the mainsheet loose and pull down the vang to tension the lazyjacks, otherwise some of my sail will try to fall over the side of the sailbag
 
Boo2 said:
Which particular McLube do you use ? And how do you get it up the mast groove ?

Thanks,

Boo2
Click to expand...

Sailkote - I did previously have some PTFE spray but it left a white residue. McL is clear.

I only did the track as high as I could reach but next year I'm going to get a ladder on the job. It has a 'straw' like WD40 so you can squirt on to inside of the face of the groove.

Once the sail is almost down it stops - I guess the weight of the halyard in the mast and through the deck gear is more than the weight of the sail still up. Difficult to see how it could made better.
 
Re the question of fully battened, North proposed a compromise to me that's not uncommon - three full length battens at the top, two three quarter length ones at the bottom. When overpowered if I dump the traveller, the bottom half of the luff backwinds, depowering very nicely. I'm pleased with the result - nice sail shape that holds in lighter airs, but easy to put a bubble in the luff when I need to.

OTOH, it flakes like a pig when I drop it, and takes a while to sort out when I've parked.
 
Twister_Ken said:
Re the question of fully battened, North proposed a compromise to me that's not uncommon - three full length battens at the top, two three quarter length ones at the bottom. When overpowered if I dump the traveller, the bottom half of the luff backwinds, depowering very nicely. I'm pleased with the result - nice sail shape that holds in lighter airs, but easy to put a bubble in the luff when I need to.

OTOH, it flakes like a pig when I drop it, and takes a while to sort out when I've parked.
Click to expand...



Thanks for the input folks. I think I'll replace the nylon track sliders, and give the whole mast track a good dose of McLube at the same time.

Graeme
 
pagoda said:
Thanks for the input folks. I think I'll replace the nylon track sliders, and give the whole mast track a good dose of McLube at the same time.

Graeme
Click to expand...

Graeme,

Try and clean the mast slot out if possible as a surprising amount of crud builds up over the years. I have used these pan scrubbers that are formed with a wire loop to clean between fins on a motorbike and they would be ideal to fit in the slot.

Best of luck,

BlowingOldBoots
 
john_morris_uk said:
We have four fully length battens without fancy ball bearing slides (they are slides that just fit into the mast groove) full lazyjacks and a stack pack. Its a masthead rig and has everything lead back to the cockpit.

I usually give the slides a spray with teflon lubricant once a year.

If we flake the main halyard out on the cockpit floor so that its ready to run and come head to wind, the mainsail stows itself in the stack pack in about a second or so. I very rarely have to got and pull anything more than the last metre of the head of the sail into the stack pack and this is done very easily.

So I don't think you need fancy ball bearing slides, but you do need to attend to friction. You also need to be head to wind - or at least into the wind enough that there is NO pressure of wind forcing the mainsail against the lazy jacks when you push the clutch holding the halyard wide open.

The biggest bit of clearing up I have to do is in tidying up the reefing pennants that invariably don't fall neatly into the stack pack - but I just stand on our aft deck and flip them inside.

Hope that this description helps? Is there anything else you need to know about the system?
Click to expand...

+1.
 
Bene 473, with main halyard led back to cockpit. When I first got the boat, dropping the main involved going fwd with boat hook and hooking the slides to pull the main down.
I did a few trips up the mast, cleaned and lubed tracks and slides, very little difference made.
On their own, the slides moved a treat.
Then next time I cam0 eto drop the main, went foward after releasing the clutch and pulled slack from the halyard up the mast, i.e. where the halyard turns at the mast base block, before going into the mast slot.
As the halyard was pulled back, the main dropped to the boom.
Its a 12mm halyard, so the problem just seems to be friction between cockpit clutch and mast slot.
All blocks and leads turn OK, may be a dyneema 10mm halyard would be better, but I'll need to shake the money tree real hard for that
 
All being well I find that the momentum if the descending luff helps but if as mentioned, there is a snag in the halyard coils then I have to go forward and help pull the last 3m or so.
Although- again as mentioned- if you get the 3 reef folds 'in' standing in the cockpit then the rest is a very minor issue and tidies v neatly.

It is a fine balance between getting the lazyjacks right so that the aftermost parts catch that huge wodge of descending sail well, yet don't trap it when hoisting.
Always helpful to see how other similar boats do it.
 
MoodySabre said:
Sailkote - I did previously have some PTFE spray but it left a white residue. McL is clear.

I only did the track as high as I could reach but next year I'm going to get a ladder on the job. It has a 'straw' like WD40 so you can squirt on to inside of the face of the groove.

Once the sail is almost down it stops - I guess the weight of the halyard in the mast and through the deck gear is more than the weight of the sail still up. Difficult to see how it could made better.
Click to expand...

I found a drop of three in one oil on the rollers worked quite well.
 
nigel1 said:
Bene 473, with main halyard led back to cockpit. When I first got the boat, dropping the main involved going fwd with boat hook and hooking the slides to pull the main down.
I did a few trips up the mast, cleaned and lubed tracks and slides, very little difference made.
On their own, the slides moved a treat.
Then next time I cam0 eto drop the main, went foward after releasing the clutch and pulled slack from the halyard up the mast, i.e. where the halyard turns at the mast base block, before going into the mast slot.
As the halyard was pulled back, the main dropped to the boom.
Its a 12mm halyard, so the problem just seems to be friction between cockpit clutch and mast slot.
All blocks and leads turn OK, may be a dyneema 10mm halyard would be better, but I'll need to shake the money tree real hard for that
Click to expand...

The halyard I have is rather tired- and was on the list for probable replacement... I'll maybe bump that up the list a bit.
I don't want to downsize too much - it's easy to handle at the moment, but new rope would help. The clutch area is becoming worn.
thanks for reminding me.
 
Minimise Friction

I would second the fans of minimising friction, letting out the mainsheet and spraying the slides every now and then.

We also find though that hauling in the topping lift just a liitle more than we used to, before dropping the main, helps to prevent the slides being pulled out against their track, thereby reducing friction and allowing the sail to drop more easily. We have lazyjacks, gallows, battened sails and running rigging controlled from the mast and occasionally, just occasionally, when everything goes right the main comes tumbling down into a lovely flaked package.
 
nigel1 said:
Thanks for the tip on the topping lift, I have been relying on the vang, but taking a bit of extra weight on the topping lift sounds like a way to reduce the aft pull on the slides.
Click to expand...

I have a fully battened main, slab reefed.
I find that my topping lift has a "sweet spot" that when tightened "just so" the m'sail drops like billio, same for hoisting.
I have a PTFE spray I use to lube the slides.
First of all I lube the track with a contraption I made.
It is a T shaped felt bundle that I soak in PTFE and then haul up and down using the main halliard and a line to pul lit down. When the action is totally smooth I then spray each slider before pushing them through the gate.
Works a treat.
 
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