About a year ago Brad and I purchased our Sailrite sewing machine. Between now and then there have been (many- but who’s counting?!) fabric purchases, remnant ransacking and plenty of seam ripping going on…and successful projects as well.
At first we started out with easy projects- zip up pillow covers and zipper pouches. Each were a lot of fun to shop for, and great experience.
Brad had just purchased new sails for our boat and the sailmaker had an option to build the stack pack for us. We would save around $800 to do it ourselves so we thought we would give it our best shot. Lucky for us, Sailrite has an extensive selection of how to videos and ready to go kits just for the job.
Some of you may be wondering what the heck a stack pack is. Let me explain. A stack pack and lazy jacks act as a cradle for the mainsail. When the mainsail is not flying, it needs to be dropped and covered. The lazy jacks help contain the sail as it makes its way down the mast and into the stack pack. Once the sail is completely down, the top of the stack pack zips up providing UV protection for the sail. Pretty neat, eh?!
Once the sails arrived we were able to get to work. We set up the mainsail, took measurements and started our project. The way we had measured called for us to add an additional panel to each port and starboard side. Little did we know this would be unnecessary, but we learned a fancy new seam trick.
There was an abundance of long seams and hems to stitch at this stage of the project. Bonus: I finally learned how to sew in a straight line and gained some serious confidence behind the machine. We were working with sunbrella, Dacron, webbing, zippers and serious amounts of basting tape. Basting tape is a miracle from the sewing gods- also available for purchase at Sailrite!
Brad was the master problem solver/tool man during this project and always found a way to make things work. Just like I can never have enough fabric, he never have enough tools. ? The right tools for the job make all the difference. We found ourselves using our hot knife and soldering iron quite a bit. 
We completed our first attempt and took the finished product to the boat for a fitting. At this time Brad and our friend Jesper set up the lazy jacks, attached the stack pack and raised/flaked the main.
What we discovered is that we were a little too ambitious during our first measuring attempt. The cover was much too big!
Feeling a little defeated, but not in total despair, we took the time to reflect on what changes we wanted to make. Brad had the brilliant idea to pick up some slides for the pack to slide into the boom track. This would keep the stack pack attached to the boom evenly.
We were short on slides so we headed to a local sail loft to buy a few. During our visit we were shown a professionally done stack pack that was fully lined with Dacron, fully enclosed and equipped with straps to roll the pack up while you’re out sailing. We decided not to fully line with Dacron at this time, but did decide to attach the roll up straps to our new and improved pack.
It was back to the drawing board. We knew the improvements we wanted to add, but needed to figure out exactly how it was all going to work. Brad completed diagram after diagram until he was satisfied with our new plan. We cut the bottoms of our panels and started from scratch. The modifications took one day and we were ready for our second fitting. We also created our mast boot at this time. This portion wraps around the mast and attaches to the port/starboard sides of the stack pack via zippers.
Brad and I put the mainsail back on again, reattached the jack lines and hoped for the best. We raised the main, flaked it into the pack and liked what we saw so far. The next test would be to zip the pack up. We hit a slight snag but don’t worry, it closed like a champ! Next and final test- would the mast boot fit? Sure enough it did! I couldn’t help but to admire our work while Brad checked for things to adjust. At first the project seemed completely overwhelming, but we took it step by step and won! Here, take a look…you know you want to!
Sew our next sewing projects on the list are lee cloths, a sailbag for our stays’l, mast boot, windlass cover and probably a few more pillow covers, ya know, for good measure!