How To Make Lazy Jacks Easy To Use

Lazy jacks are one of the best things on a sailboat for dropping the main. Having the mainsail drop, neatly flaked into the cradle was easy and satisfying. Raising it, though, can be a completely different story. The battens snaged on the jacks, the sail went up three inches at a time, and someone at the helm heard exactly what you thought about the mess. I’ve been there. But you don’t have to suffer. There’s a simple fix, and it costs about $100 in parts and a couple of hours of your time.

Why Lazy Jacks Are Frustrating (And Why Most Sailors Keep Them Anyway)

The problem is real. When you raise the main, the battens catch on the lazy jacks. You raise a few inches, pause, wait for the jack to flip out of the way, then raise a few more. You need the bow pointed almost perfectly into the wind the whole time. The person on deck is frustrated. The person at the helm is frustrated. There’s usually some “discussion.”

And yet, when it’s time to drop the main, lazy jacks are wonderful. They corral the sail as it comes down, almost flaking it onto the boom for you. That’s worth keeping.

So the goal isn’t to remove the lazy jacks. It’s to make them moveable. Here’s how to do it.

The Secret: A Lazy Jack System You Can Reposition

The fix lets you move the lazy jacks completely out of the way when raising the sail, then drop them back into position when you’re ready to come down. No batten snagging. No fighting the wind angle. And while you’re sailing, you can keep the jacks hooked forward so they’re not chafing on the main.

Here’s how it works.

To raise the main, you uncleat each control line from its cleat on the mast, pull each lazy jack forward along the boom, and hook them onto the reef hooks or the mast cleats. Then tighten up the lazy jack lines. Now the jacks form a reverse “L,” running along the boom and up the mast, completely out of the sail’s path.

With the lazy jacks out of the way, the main goes up easily. Without catching. No stopping. No discussion.

While you’re sailing, leave the lazy jacks clipped forward against the mast. That keeps them from rubbing on the sail and causing chafe.

When it’s time to come down, unclip the jacks and tighten them up to catch the main as it drops.

In light air, you can often drop the main without turning into the wind at all. The lazy jacks do the work.

A little adjustment after it’s down and the main is ready for the sail cover. The main almost flakes itself.

This works equally well with a stack pack. We had a stack pack with four boom attachment points on our previous boat, a Tayana 37 with a much larger mainsail, and the system worked perfectly there too.

Our Situation on Barefoot Gal

When we bought Barefoot Gal, she came with lazy jacks, but they were terminated at the mast above the first spreaders with no control line back down to deck level. It drove us nuts.

We had rigged our previous boat, Que Tal, to avoid this problem years earlier, so we knew the fix. Here’s what we did. It’s an easy DIY project.

How to Make the Modification

You will add two new things to your existing lazy jack system: a small block on the mast at the existing lazy jack attachment point, and a cleat on the mast at a convenient height down toward deck level. Then you run a longer control line from the lazy jacks through the new block and down to the new cleat. And note: you’ll do all of this on each side of the mast.

Nothing along the boom changes. All the work is at the mast.

You will need to go up the mast for the block and pad eye work. Total cost is $100 to $150 on most boats. Time required is 2 to 3 hours once you have all the parts.

Preparation

Whip or melt the ends of your new control lines before you go up the mast. That’s the kind of thing you don’t want to forget when you’re 40 feet in the air.

Rig your bosun’s chair or mast-climbing setup and a bag or container for carrying tools and parts aloft. Take the new control lines up with you. Take everything you might need, because you don’t want extra trips.

Before anyone goes up, read these tips for keeping the person on deck safe while someone is working aloft. It’s easy to focus on the person going up and forget there are real hazards for whoever is below.

Good communication between the person aloft and the person on deck makes the whole job faster and safer. We use our Marriage Saver Headsets for exactly this kind of work. No shouting up 30 feet of mast, no misheard instructions.

Step One: Add Cleats on the Mast

Install the cleats on the mast at a convenient height near deck level, one on each side of the mast, out of the way of any winches and easy to reach. This is where you will cleat off the lazy jack control line after each use.

When attaching any fitting to the mast, always use machine screws or rivets, never sheet metal screws. Halyards and wiring run inside the mast, and the pointed tips of sheet metal screws can damage either one. Drill a hole in the mast and tap it for machine screws. Dab Tef-Gel on the threads before inserting the screw to keep the dissimilar metals from seizing.

The same rule applies to the boom: use machine screws or rivets for any fitting there so you don’t snag the outhaul or reefing lines.

Step Two: Pad Eyes and Blocks at the Lazy Jack Attachment Point

For this step, you’ll have to go up the mast using your bosun’s chair or mast-climbing device. Always use a backup, completely independent system on a separate halyard.

If your lazy jacks already terminate at pad eyes on the mast, you simply shackle a small block (sized for your control line) to each existing pad eye. If you don’t have pad eyes, install them with machine screws or rivets, then shackle the blocks to them. Secure each shackle pin with seizing wire or a cable tie so the pins can’t back out with the motion of the boat.

Step Three: New Control Line

Before coming back down, pass one new control line through each of the blocks you’ve just installed. Tie the ends together loosely near the ends of each line. This keeps a line from slipping back up through the block while you’re climbing down. (Ask me how I know about that one.)

Once you’re back on deck, tie one end of each line to the block at the top of the lazy jack catch lines, at the point labeled “block” in the diagram below. Cleat the other end on the cleat you just installed.

Parts List

The loads on this system are very light. You don’t need heavy-duty or top-of-the-line hardware. We had some of these in our spares locker and bought the rest.

• Two small blocks (Amazon) — sized for your control line diameter
• Two shackles (Amazon) — sized to fit your pad eyes and blocks
• Two pad eyes (Amazon) — a 10-pack is good value, but don’t use the sheet metal screws that come with them; buy 4mm stainless machine screws at a hardware or home improvement store
• Tef-Gel (Amazon) — to keep screws from seizing in the mast
• Machine screws or rivets for attaching the pad eyes
• Seizing wire or cable ties to lock the shackle pins
• Two small cleats (Amazon) — plus machine screws for attaching them to the mast
• New control line for lazy jacks (Amazon) — measure from the aft attachment point of the lazy jacks on the boom to the gooseneck, then add twice the distance from the gooseneck up to the pad eye on the mast. That gives you enough line to cleat off. You need two pieces this length. Choose UV-resistant line; we like Sta-Set.

Cruiser’s Advice

Adam, a boat owner in the United Kingdom suggests another advantage of this system. He suggests moving the lazy jacks out of the way to the mast cleats when you leave the boat behind in a marina. If winds rise while you’re away, you eliminate the possibility of chafe and wear on the sail cover. Thanks, Adam. That’s a great idea.

Of course, one should always watch the weather, even when you’re off the boat–perhaps especially when you’re off the boat. I wrote Weather Basics for Boaters: The Details that Matter to help you understand the weather information you have access to.

Whether you’re on or off you boat, this new system has much to recommend it, and it’s easy to implement. Adding this change to our boat made raising the main as easy as dropping it.

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