Hello,
Ever since we got our boat we have tried various ways of dealing with the main when it is not raised and we are using the motor (no wind, to/from dock, etc.). However, we haven't found one I'm thrilled with yet. We've tried:
1. Leave it in the boom bag, motor out, and unroll, bend, and raise main all on the water. This makes getting away from the ramp the quickest but is a huge pain on the water and not safe in any kind of gusty conditions.
2. Leave it piled in the boat, with the boom end laying in the cockpit to weigh it down. This is the quickest and easiest way for short trips - to/from the dock - but is a huge mess in the boat, obviously.
3. flaking the sail on the boom with the topping lift. We find this really difficult to do well without sail slugs, since the whole thing can fall out once you lower it and there is nothing to pull against to get neat flakes. It's also very difficult to do at all on the water if the boat is rocking at all, even with crew.
4. motoring with the mainsail up - really only done this out of laziness on no-wind days to get the last couple hundred yards back to the dock, but the sail flogs like crazy.
5. We have not yet tried - but I think I will - leaving it rolled around the boom, and then using the rolling gooseneck to let it out while someone else hoists. This seems like it would be the neatest and most controlled but might take forever, and I hate being caught for long periods of time with any sail only partially hoisted.
I tried searching but couldn't find any other articles about this, so I'm curious. For those of you that have motors, what do you do with the main when you're not using it? Any ideas welcome!