We had a neighbor in the harbor with a similar‑sized boat who took off one year to sail the South Pacific. Right before he left, he ordered an asymmetrical spinnaker and a Mack Pack from Mack Sails in Ft. Lauderdale. He showed it to us on the dock, and it stuck with us how much easier that setup made handling his mainsail.
Years later, after doing an ocean crossing with a main that had no lazy jacks and no real way to keep it under control aside from crawling along it tying it down, we finally decided to follow his lead. We measured everything and ordered a Mack Pack from Mack Sails. They were great to deal with over the phone and shipped the whole setup all the way to Alaska.
Install went smooth enough. Added blocks above the first spreaders to run the lazy jacks through. Lots of new hardware on the mast and boom to attach to. The trickiest part was adding sail slides to attach the pack to. All the slides had to be put on with the mainsail itself.
It’s a simple upgrade, but it makes a huge difference in how manageable the mainsail is. One can easily reef or stow the sail and the sail never falls under your feet or covers the view of the helm.
