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The final version of the Junk Rig Glossary is now available and can be found under the Junk Information menu, or directly here.  This Glossary lists all the terms related to the junk rig, its implementation and use.

We were formed in the UK, and although our 'office' address and banking remains in the UK we are run by an increasingly international Committee via the Internet. A number of posts become vacant every year, at the AGM, so if you choose to join you could also put your name forward to help run the 'club'. It doesn't run itself. Our membership is now more than   50% outside the UK. Click the chart for detail.

January 2020 - Poppy

To start a new “Featured Boat” series for 2020, here is Poppy, a Westerly “Longbow” (31’ LOA x 24’ LWL x 9’6” beam x 4’6” draught, 9,261 lb displacement x 4,000lb ballast); a stock, fin-keel cruising boat, designed by Laurent Giles.  

In need of a new rig, Poppy was purchased a decade ago by Slieve McGalliard, as a test bed for his  new development of the junk sail, which he called “Split Junk Rig” (SJR).  This has been explained in more detail both in magazines and in Slieve’s notes that can be found at here.  The concept has proven to be successful and a number of SJR rigs have since been made.  In 2016 Poppy was sold and is currently being refitted by her new owner, Tim Metcalf.  Below is Slieve’s recollection of Poppy and his development of her interesting rig: 

“Years of sailing bermudan-rigged sloops, suggested that where the rig was fine for dinghy racing in class fleets, it was not ideal for offshore sailing, with a typical husband and wife crew.  Sure it would go to windward in the right conditions, but the performance fell off as the bows pointed away from the wind, and a spinnaker was needed to provide an adequate performance with the wind abaft the beam – a totally unseamanlike device for a weak family crew to use.  John Campbell's book Easier Rigs for Safer Cruising: Sail Handling from the Cockpit, analysed the problem and suggested that the junk rig ticked all the boxes.  Further reading indicated that some junk-rigged boats struggled to tack, which indicated that a closer analysis was required to overcome this problem with performance.  Jotting points down in a word processor, resulted in the article, Some Thoughts [See link above], which suggested that a junk rig structure with large sail balance and a split in the sail at the mast should overcome the issue.

“Convinced that it would work, it was still a big step to convert the 31 foot Poppy to prove the point.  However, from the first sail the rig supported the theory, and performed as well as or better than all other equivalent cruising boats we met on the water.  The low stresses in the rig and on the crew have been a joy to experience, and in the words of the first person to have a trial sail, with a silly grin on his face he was chanting, ‘I must have one.  I must have one.’ He did replace his rig and didn’t look back.

“The camber at the luff is undoubtedly the key feature, and the resultant high lift-to-drag ratio of the rig can be quite a surprise to the unwary.  When the sail fills, the full drive is suddenly delivered and the boat responds very quickly.  The efficiency of the rig means that there is no need for extra sail area.  It’s nice to sit relaxed in the cockpit and sail alongside boats flying spinnakers, when their crews are struggling to keep control.  Simply following all the features designed into the rig seems consistently to produce a good rig.

“The design has developed since Poppy, and I hope a new write-up with simplified design and sail making ideas will appear in 2020.”

Our Boat of the Month Archive is here.