[blahman]

Well, different ways of tackling the same horse. You choose to drill a hole to mount a bullseye, or run a line inside the mast, I lash a fairlead and keep the line outside. You dyneema, I polyester. Whatever. The polyester has been working fine on my boat for three years.

As for your opinion of lazyjacks, I disagree. With the stackpack and lazyjacks, I barely have to touch my mainsail, and it makes the whole experience much easier for my 60 year old parents who are novice sailors. Since we don't have to touch the sail, other than pulling slab reefing lines into the pac after lowering, the material isn't getting worked by hands and I think that makes a big difference in sail shape over time. I rarely touch my lazyjacks and certainly don't lower them every time I raise the main - only when I want to raise or lower the main when below a beam reach after setting a spinnaker. Otherwise I head up to something over beam reach, sheet the main out and it is never a problem to leave the jacks up. The complaint about the roach getting caught shows one isn't heading up and/or sheeting out, or that the lazyjack's legs weren't installed in a way that guides the sail up. As for lowering, again - that's never a problem for us - head up some, sheet out and the main goes where it's supposed to. Again, the stackpack doesn't make that much difference - it worked the same before when simply lazyjacks. Without a pack, as Auspicious said, flaking the sail as it comes down can be very helpful, especially if you don't have a lazyjack leg far aft on your boom to keep the lower leach in place.

On a more personal note, this "a 32' boat is too small" thing is opinion and fairly ridiculous and the idea that lazyjacks have to moved out of the way to hoist, just the same. I can believe you have trouble getting lazyjacks to work because I've seen experienced people have trouble with them, usually due to the forward leg's position. But it's unfair to go around telling people that jacks don't work and shouldn't be used on "small" (because a 300ft/2 main is tiny) boats. Consider that, however slim you may think the chances are, something about your lazyjacks may be keeping them from working the way they are supposed to. It is terribly condescending to respond to posts by essentially saying "what he just said is wrong and can't work and this is the only way you should do it, when that person has just finished saying "this works for me."

I don't mean to be offensive, but dislike when people flatly dismiss other's methods of doing things. A 32' boat to you may be small, but to another its main is a beast that's hard to tackle, etc, etc. The internet and forums like this are a great resource and place for people to discuss what works for themselves to the end of helping others.

~Aaron