Packing Up the Mainsail With a Folding Mast.

The advantage of the folding mast arrangement is speed when packing up or rigging when going sailing. I took some photos showing the steps in packing up with the boat on its trailer in my backyard. First photo shows the sail flaked down on the boom with the gaff lowered on top of it. The lazy jacks make this quick and easy; the luff flakes down nicely without assistance, the leech needs to be helped with one hand while lowering peak and throat halyards with the other. The sail is bundled up and tied with a number (about 8) shock cord sail ties.

As the mast is lowered the bundled sail falls down and rests on one of the side seats. The mast sits on the crutch at the transom. The bundled sail is now raised and tied up to the folded down mast with two pieces of hook and loop tape. Note that the furled jib, halyards, topping lift and side stays are still in place making an untidy mess.

A few more shock cord ties are put on to bundle up the jib and all those ropes. That's it for the main mast, main sail and jib.

When launching the boat the process is reversed and, with a bit of care, the mast goes up and the lines fall into place without getting tangled.

I had more difficulty with the mizzen because it didn't want to go into a tidy bundle ready to be stowed in the boat for travelling. I have solved this by adding simple lazy jacks so that the sail and gaff can be lowered onto the boom. Flaking the sail is a bit fiddly but the lazy jacks help a lot with this. Once that is done I list the whole bundle of boom sail and gaff parallel to the mast and tie it all together with more shock cord ties. Lift the mizzen mast and bundle out of its box, lay it diagonally across the seats and tie it to the centre thwart.

Strap the boat to the trailer and drive away. It took longer to write this post than to do the actual packing up!