Port Townsend Rigging Lazy Jack Project

Pictures of our finished lazy jack project.

Selden Single Line Reefing System

The Selden diagram was a little confusing, so I created my own with Visio. The picture is of the Selden single line reefing block. One end is eye spliced, and goes towards the luff reefing grommet. The other end is a block with a line through it. One end of the line goes through the leech reefing grommet, and gets looped around the boom with a bowline and a loop. The other end goes to the mast base or cockpit, where you set the reef. Pulling on the reefing line pulls the luff and leach down at the same time, therefore reducing sail area (reefing).

Wax On Wax Off

With colder weather on its way, we decided to get a coat of wax on Bliss before winter.  There are a few steps involved.  First, we wash the boat really well with diluted Simple Green, rinse well and towel dry.  Second, the surface was a bit dull, so we decided to polish the boat before waxing.  We used Collinite 870.  After using the polish, the surface shined like new.  Finally, we added a coat of 3M wax.  We will try the Collinite 885 wax next time.  The topsides and one side of the hull took us both ten hours - what a work out!

 

Xantrex Battery Monitor

The instructions on the Xantrex installation manual says that these two wires (yellow & brown) should be twisted to reduce noise interference. Originally, they were not twisted. We thought this may be the cause of incorrect readings on our starter battery charge, but that wasn't it. After twisting the cables, the problem is still there.

We had the starter battery tested, and the battery health came back at 50%. So we started looking for a new starter battery. Our fist choice is Mastervolt, but there is a limited sales network here. We may have to settle for our second choice, a Trojan 31M AGM.

Mast Boot

During our Tides Marine Strong Track project, we droppped some fasteners inside the mast sail groove. The fasteners fell inside the mast boot, which forced us to cut the boot to retrieve them. The boot was looking a little tired anyway. This is our new mast boot before, during and after.

New Sails

Our new sails are here from Port Townsend Sails and our old sails are in consignment. Our friend Matt helped Geralyn bend on the genoa while I was trying to figure out how to remove the broken tap from the boom. This genoa is smaller than our old genoa. This one is 120%. 100%, being from the headstay to the mast, the sail goes past the mast 20%. Our old genoa was 135%, and didn't have the luff foam, which gave it a funny and not very efficient shape when reefed. The main is drastically different in that it is not integrated with the stackpack and lazy jacks. With this new setup, the mainsail, lazy jacks and possibly stackpack, will be independent of each other. Also, our old mainsail had three reef points. Our new main has only two, but they are deeper reefs, so that the second reef is where the old third reef would have been. We like this better because the old third reef had to be set from the mast. Possibly the last place you want to be when you're setting the third reef. Now we can set reef 1 & 2 from the cockpit. Another big difference is that our new main is loose-footed, so the foot is not attached to the boom. Can't wait to get the lazy jacks installed, so we can go for a test sail. We tried dowsing the sail without lazy jacks and it took Geralyn and I 15 minutes to flake the sail.

Broken Tap

I feel like I dodged a bullet. In my eagerness to mount the lazy jack hardware, I started mounting padeyes into the bottom of the boom. We have a Selden boom, and it has our reefing lines inside the boom along with some blocks that give us 2:1 purchase when reefing. I thought if I cut the fasteners down so that they were just inside the aluminum, I wouldn't run into any of the internal reefing controls. On the second hole of the first padeye, I broke the tap inside the boom. To make matters worse, the broken tap prevented the second reefing line from moving. The tap broke flush to the surface, so there was no way to get it out by reversing. Finally, I had the idea of pulling on the reefing line really hard to dislodge the tap. It worked. When I pulled the line out of the boom, I could see the tap had gone into the line, but not the blocks. I didn't want to leave the tap in the boom, so we coaxed it out with a magnet, since the boom is aluminum and the tap hardened steel.

I think if I continued mounting the padeyes, I may have done permanent damage to the boom. Luckily, I had the idea to contact Port Townsend Rigging. The folks at Port Townsend Rigging suggested a boom slider that goes in the bottom groove of the boom. That way, I don't have to drill any holes and compromise the internal reefing system.

Aloft Again

Lazy Jacks

We're installing a new set of lazy jacks that is independent of the stackpack. We saw the Port Townsend Rigging Lazy Jack system at the Seattle Boat Show, and decided to try it. First step was to mount two cheek blocks on the mast about 25' up. We're just now starting to feel comfortable going aloft, but going aloft with tools and doing precision drilling and tapping is another story. Luckily, with Geralyn on travel, my friend Matt agreed to help. Here are some pictures of drilling, tapping and mounting cheek blocks for our new lazy jack system. The first picture is a template we made to mount the cheek blocks exactly 15 degrees off center.

Fall Chinook Salmon

We have neglected our blog a little, and here's why - it's fall Chinook salmon season on the Columbia River.  We have put in some hours with a line in the water. Geralyn caught this one. It was delicious!

Tides Marine Strong Track

Our old Tides Marine Strong Track was looking quite tired, so we ordered a replacement. The company has all their orders on file, so if you give them your track number, they can pull up your order and provide any assistance or replacement. Tides Marine has really impressed us with quality and customer service. This is our new track.

Naked Bliss

We removed the sails in preparation for removing the sailtrack and bending on new sails. Removing the sail was a little involved because the stackpack and lazy jacks were all integrated. We like the stackpack concept, but we're not sure about it being sown to the sail. We may go back to a stackpack someday now that we have options. Bliss really looks strange without sails.

Portlight Film

Our forward berth portlights are clear, so they don't provide much privacy. There's also no way to shut out the sun in the morning and we didn't want to use curtains. We looked into some very expensive magnetic panels that go over the portlight, but decided to try a cheaper option for now. This film is made by Gila and it provides privacy, UV protection, and shuts direct light out. It also comes off pretty easily with a soapy solution. We're pretty happy with it so far. We like being able to see out of the portlights, so we probably won't do all of them, only selected ones throughout the boat.