I installed a new Mack Pack yesterday. It fits well and looks great. What I’m not sure about is whether or not to loosen the straps before I hoist the sail. Can anyone with a Mack Pack give me any guidance?
Thanks
Dave DeWolfe
NS26C #150 Ascension
Gold River Marina, Nova Scotia.
Beautiful picture.
If you don’t hear from a Mack user, you might contact Mack Sails, headquartered in Florida. I believe their phone number is 772.283.2306 .
I don’t know specifically who handles them, but when I talked to them about a quote for my sail, the guy who handled that was Travis Blaine travis@macksails.com.
– Bob
I assume you are talking about the straps that go around the mast and not the hangers that come down from the boom to hold up the sailbag.
I don’t know what brand mine is but it looks very similar to yours except that the part that encircles the mast fastens with zippers plus a velcro strap and cord at the very top. That top strap and cord must be undone to sail (both to allow the sail to emerge from the bag and because the strap and velcro cover the halyard track) but I usually leave the zippers closed so that the fabric remains in place around the mast but fits loosely once the main zipper that keeps the sail in place is opened.
As for Mack specifically, the Mack website says this:
“When sailing, we often leave the front of the cover fully attached to the mast. If we’re going on an open water passage, or if the wind is up, we unhook it and roll the front of each side down to the ties provided. When we need to reef we lower the sail to the luff cringle, hook it, retention the luff of the sail–then, (we have external reefing lines to a winch on the boom), we hook the cover back up to the mast so it cannot get caught in the outhaul reefing line–then we crank the new clew out tight, re-tie the cover down and off we go. The lazy jacks contain the bunt of the sail, so there’s no need to tie off the individual reef pendants.”
They seem to be saying that you can leave the straps in place unless you think you might need to reef. They are talking about “external reefing lines”, however, and in my case I don’t need to remove the mast cover even to reef. I assume you have the same reefing system so perhaps you would not have to do so either.
I hope that’s helpful.
Bob,
Had a conversation with Travis Blain … all cleared up. Leave them on.
Thanks
Dave
Christian,
Thanks for the info. It’s all cleared up. After a discussion with the owned of Mack Sails.
–Dave
