Building Lazy Jacks

[Mariner4152]

Greetings everyone,

I am thinking about building a set of Lazy Jacks for my boat. I am getting into doing all my own rope-work. I have a small 19 ft Stuart Mariner. It is essentially a day sailor, my first boat and lives on it's trailer most of the time. I sail primarily with my wife and two young children. Most of our trips involve stops at beaches for the girls to play. The Main is fitted with sail lugs so it stays in the slot but it is still all over the place until I get it loosely furled onto the boom.

While at the Great Lakes Tall-Ship Challenge in Chicago a couple weeks ago, I noticed two different types of lazy jacks. Some with blocks on the legs and others with ropes spliced into the lazy jack halyard. From the information I have been able to find on the internet, the preferred method of construction appears to involve using thimbles or blocks for adjust-ability.

I am planning on building the jacks using 3 strand 1/4 rope. Install a couple cheek blocks about 70% up the mast and a couple of small cleats near the bottom of the mast. I was thinking I could just splice the legs into halyards. Install 3 eye straps along the bottom of the boom. Splice a small fast-eye clip at the bottom of each leg. That way the whole system would be easily installed/removed when getting the boat read to sail/trail. The mast is about 25ft tall and the boom just over 10ft long.

Any thoughts on why this would not be a good solution?

Do you see any problems?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions or opinions.
Greg.

[Brian Duff]

you don't want blocks.
use small dyneema line and it will remain slippery enough to move easily when retracted.

I strongly recommend making them adjustable from above, as opposed to along the boom, so that you can adjust them even with the mainsail down.

I like to have my lazy jacks stowed when the main is down , so that its easy to hoist and clear to sail, then just before dropping we set them, drop the main, furl it, then put them away.

Ideally the fall of the lazy jacks from above is run internal on the rig.

That said, my current boat at 32' is too small for lazy jacks. (IMHO)

[Mariner4152]

Thanks for the info. Probably build the first pair from a cheaper rope the first time to work out the bugs in the system.

With respect to being adjustable, that was the plan for the check blocks up near the top of the mast then lead the halyards back to the bottom and cleat them off. That way I could raise or lower the lazy jacks as needed. The area of concern for me is where the legs attach to the boom. Do I need the legs to be adjustable or is it Ok to just terminate them at the boom? Should the front legs have more slack to allow for more sail bulk?

Thanks again.
Greg.

[blahman]

Hi Greg,

I've built a few stackpacks and lazyjack systems for people, including myself, and prefer to use 1/4" three-strand dacron for the jacks.

I lashed a teardrop stainless thimble a couple feet below the upper eyes of my lower after shrouds, then a plastic cleat down at a serviceable level to make the lazyjacks to:

Photo of thimble (I don't want any crap for my ugly lashing...it was night and post uh...dinner...and its beverages
Photo of cleat

The 1/4" dacron runs up from the cleat, through the thimble, then down to the stackpack with butterfly knots tied in three places on the main lazyjack line. Then two sections of line rove through the butterfly knots and tied to the stackpack at the appropriate length to support it in four places, with a single length supporting the front. So the two aft-most legs are one line rove through a butterfly knot (eye), and the two middle legs also one line. In this way you can adjust the tension by tightening the legs, or by tighting the entire stackpack's lazyjack line:

Photo of lazyjacks supporting stackpack
Photo of lazyjack line made off to cleat on shroud, and stackpack.


I do not think it is necessary to use Dyneema for lazyjacks, unless you were going to have the lazyjacks support the boom as a topping lift. My polyester three-strand has been on the boat for three years and is doing a great job. Plus, the whole lazyjack system cost about $20. Though mine is setup for use with a stackpack, the concept is identical for a standard lazyjack rig. Also, after some tweaking of placement of the butterfly knots, I don't have trouble with the roach of the main getting caught in the jacks, as long as the boom is sheeted into the wind.

Cheers,
Aaron N.

[Brian Duff]

dyneema is the right product as it doesn't need thimbles, blocks or any such junk. it is also very skinny for low ugliness factor, and very UV resistant for longevity. You always want to retract your lazy jacks for setting sail and sailing, otherwise they are a pita. the W32 is too small for lazy jacks too, btw. ( thats what I sail mostly too, and the lazy jacks actually made the sail take LONGER to put away....!!!)

adjusting from aloft is a must, but don't stay outside the rig! either fasten a bullseye fairlead to the spreader about 6" out from the mast and then in, or just drill a small hole in the mast and round off, lead the dyneema right into the rig. Use a single control line with a small block or ring inside the mast to adjust both sides together, or each individually depending on how you like it. Super smooth, simple, have put up maybe almost 50 like this.... it works.

dacron will not work without thimbles rings or blocks because its not slippery enough....certainly not a year down the line.

[Auspicious]

I'm with Brian. I don't have any blocks for my lazy jacks, just a bullseye on the first spreader.

For me the key to controlling the sail -- with or without lazy jacks, is to pull the sail back and flake it as it comes down and stop dropping to tie the sail down as you go forward. This is trivial with two people and reasonable with one (although one spends a lot of time heading forward and back).

[Mason Smith]

Just when I found myself a 1989 Nimble 24 in Ottawa and brought it here to the central Adirondacks, figuring to use it for weeks at a time on Lakes George, Champlain, and Ontario, and the St. Lawrence River and Thousand Islands (but first the first week of November 2015 on the northern Chesapeake) my wife gave me Maynard Bray's book Aida, which turns out to be a great primer on yawl sailing. It introduced me to the idea of a topping lift and lazyjacks on a yawl's mizzen.

So I have come here to this forum for information and ideas: what line, how rigged, how many legs, what fittings? When I first raised the mainmast, I found hanging just in arm's reach, from well up the mast, light lines with tiny blocks at their ends, and found eyes and cleat on the boom for legs. Behold, my first-ever jacks. (The Nimble 24 is by far my largest boat to date.) A former owner had changed the sprit-boomed mizzen to a boomed one.) One cannot walk aft beside the mizzen on this boat; the mizzen s stepped way aft and is sheeted to a I don't know what to call I,,t: a triangular object, the convergence of two boomkins, which are underneath a big solar panel mounted low above them on the mizzen mast. This is what makes the lazyjacks so desirable.

Sure enough I have found some good information. But if so moved, experts, please pose some more. And greetings to Brian Toss. If you see this, Brian, hello. We met at WB school in about 1978 to 1980 when I was researching an article on Arno Day by taking his class--to which you gave a demonstration.