Stack pack and lazy jack solutions with wishbones

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Michel
Posts: 546
Joined: Sun Dec 07, 2008 5:48 am
Location: Zaanstad, the Netherlands, EU

Stack pack and lazy jack solutions with wishbones

Post by Michel »

I saw a query on the other board about reef ties for wishbones. As confirmed by that poster himself and other sailing sailmakers, reef ties' only use are a steady feeder line of sail repair work (torn sails). Still there may be a need to control the reefed-down part of the sail.

When you have your wishbones at fixed height and a sail on track, you can have a series of cradle lines under the wishbones. As you can see below on the photo of Alabama Queen. I have five cradle lines per sail, which is about one cradle line per meter (foot of the sail is almost six meters long):
cradle lines.jpg
cradle lines.jpg (45.87 KiB) Viewed 2612 times
When reefing, the surplus cloth lies in the bottom of the cradle lines on top of the reeflines and topping lift line that live there.

One of my projects on the list is a stowaway sailcover that rests in the cradle lines under the sail and can be quickly zipped up. There needs to be a stiffener in the bottom part of this sailcover to keep it in a straight line along the foot of the sail. But this is another story.

When you have wraparounds and adjustable height wishbones that go up and down with the wraparound sail, there is also a solution. On my wraparound F35 catketch Tumlare, I had a series of small cringles made in both halves of the wraparound sail, like reef cringles. The cringles were located about 4" below the wishbone in normal sailing position; three sets of two cringles per sail. Through the set of two cringles I rove thin lines and tied these off around both arms of the wishbone. The lines were quite loose to give the sail the necessary room to move around without tension on the cringles. When you drop the sail or reef, the cloth above the cringles drops into the lines and stays put between and slightly below the wishbones. I can't find a photo of it right now, but I can search if necessary.
Michel Capel, Freedom 44 #4 1981 'Alabama Queen', NED8188, cat ketch with wishbones, home port Enkhuizen, the Netherlands, 52*42.238'N 005*18.154'E.

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