One of the things we learned on the Alaska Eagle is that you want to have your sails where you can get to them. The skipper kept some of their sails tied on deck, stored in long nylon bags. We later found out these were called "sausages". We went through quite a gale with these sails heavily tied down in place – breaking waves seems to have no effect on the stoutly lashed sails.
Our Malo 39 came with beautiful Syverson Sails. They were large, heavy, and quite stiff, as befitting a new sail. The geniker was a huge sail – about 1000 square feet – that took over any space it was in. The cutter sail was quite heavy. I knew if kept these two sails in the lazerrette, I would never use them on any regular basis. I came up with the following solutions….
Geniker box for on deck geniker storage. It is about 5 feet long, 16 inches wide at the base, and 20 inches at the lid. It is slightly tapered to allow for easy on deck passage.
The first task was to get the geniker under control. I had previously used a "turtle" to hold and deploy a geniker on my prior boat. But that sail was quite small in comparison. The turtle is more of a bag, that has to be repacked each time the sail is used. Also, the fine geniker Malo sent me had a large fiberglass collar on the snuffer. This made controlling the snuffer quite easy, but the collar barely fit through the lazerrette hatch. I came up with the idea of making a box for the sail. This box is made out of "sunbrella" canvas, and straps to the lifeline – it also clips into the bases of the stanchions. It holds the sail, snuffer, and sheets. I deploy the sail directly out of the box, and then when retrieving it I flake the sail into the box. The sides of the box are stiffened with plastic. The box disassembles for flat storage for offshore adventures. Although the box is well made – it is a little to large and an obvious target for breaking waves, which might tear it up. For inshore sailing, however, it allows me to quickly deploy and retrieve the sail solo.
The box is completely filled up by the sail. My friends thought I was nuts to put this on the boat. But I fly my geniker much more than they do. We can set the sail in less than 10 minutes – which seems quite fast considering I am deploying it solo, while MS is on the helm.
We also wanted some easy way to store our cutter sail. We had the boat built with a removable inner forstay. This is usually pulled aside, unless we forecast rough conditions. It is a quick matter to reconnect the stay, but carrying that heavy cuter sail from the lazerrette forward on a heaving deck is a lot of work. We did not want to have the sail always stored on the inner forstay, so we decided not to have a "ready bag" which is the most common method of storage.
"Sail Sausage" for on deck cutter sail storage. It is quite long – about 10 feet, but is compressed into a bundle of about 12 inches diameter when lashed.
At dock – the bag rides up high tied to the lifelines to keep it out of the rain. Offshore, we will move the bad down and tie it a bit lower.
The sail flaked into the bag ready to deploy, with sheets attached. You can see the stowed removable inner forstay with Harken tensioner on the right side of the picture.
Now that it is winter here we will be sailing a bit more with this sail, and will report back on how well this deployment system works. You might be thinking by this time that I am crazy to go to this much effort – why not just bring the sails up through the forward hatch, like real sailors. Well – we live down there – I don’t want wet nasty sails, and salt water all over my nice egyptian cotton sheets!
I must report that my poor harried wife was forced (by me) to sew this thing up on her machine – she did a great job.
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