One of the trials of small boats is they often lack the conveniences of larger boats, and lazy jacks are a great convenience indeed. For a boat like the Stuart, indeed for marconi sails up to maybe 400 square feet, a very simple system that combines quarter lifts with lazy jacks, known locally as LazyIans in the mistaken belief that I thought of this. More properly LazyLifts. LazyLifts eliminate the topping lift, with all the damage it does the leach of the sail, and eliminates the slappy-sloppy of the weather side of conventional lazy jacks.
Instead of cheek blocks up on the mast, you can simply lash a block under each spreader and inch or so out from the mast. If you think of the boom divided into quarters, the lifts will pass under the boom 3/4 back, half back, and probably in a small boat cleat 1/4 back.
It’s made of two different lines:
The longer passes under the boom 3/4 back, up through the blocks under the spreaders, and down about half way to deck, terminating at each end in a thimbled eye. (No need for blocks.)
The shorter passes under the boom half way back, up through the thimbled eyes, and down to the boom 1/4 of the way back.
Simple strap eyes will keep the two loops in position. One cleat on the starboard side of the boom - so it’s handy to you’re handling of the main halyard, reefing lines, etc. - will accommodate both parts of the falls from the shorter line.
If you draw the geometry you will see that this arrangement puts most of the lift on the boom on the aftermost loop. The brand name lazy-jack systems do this exactly backwards and if used as lifts, will allow considerable boom sag. With lazy lifts you would have a 4:1 lift pulling on just one side were the parts all together and absent friction. There’s lots of friction - useful in this application - and one loop and the falls are not out on the boom so it’s more like 2:1 actual effort but with a light small boom like this, no problem.
Until the sail is up enough that the leach starts to lift the boom, the LazyLifts will be tight. Once you have the system adjusted, the lifts will slacken as luff tension is added. When the sail is filled, the lifts will be pushed out on the lee side, thus tightening on the weather side. So you don’t have a lot of slapping about.
When you reef or otherwise want to peak up the boom, the adjustment is right there and handy.
I can give details of how to rig this in advance, rig up or down, for those interested but for now . . .
G’luck
Ian
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