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November 2020 Nicos
by Andre Fawkes
It was like this: the phone rang and the magic started.
Inga was on the other end and just said excitedly, ‘We have a boat’!
I was thinking a dinghy: we are fanatical kite surfers, so something to sail when it’s not that windy is always appealing. But no way!
Inga had got us a proper sailing boat!!
And that was the start.
Nicos is a Newbridge Virgo Voyager, who was lying in need of much love and time spent on her, at Mariners Boatyard in Kent, when Inga had rescued her.
With a length of 7m and beam of 2.55m, there is ample space below deck: owners of bigger boats would be envious of 1.82m head room.
She has bilge keels and the most important feature; a junk rig.
We fell in love with this quirky little boat straight away.
She was built in 1987, with this rig as the original option.
The mast is an alloy tapered mast made by Proctor, and the junk sail we believe is quite unusual. It is designed by Bob Burns and Alan Boswell and is called a roamer rig. There is no yard at the top of the sail, and Bob Burns used this rig on his ‘Ebbtide’, Roamer, about which we have found articles about in Practical Boat Owner magazine. [Editor: there are also articles about Roamer in JRA Magazines.] The sail is made by a company called Crusader in Poole.
Possibly some may not call this a pure junk rig, but it is unusual, quirky and we love the way it sails.
It’s easy to reef, seems to handle quite a lot of wind and points nicely to windward.
I would say Nicos is quite predictable to sail and easy to tack, and seems to fly down wind with the sheets let out.
She can be sailed hard over in good wind, or at a sedate pace. With the low hull and twin keels, there is lots of room so overnight stays are easy. We are still learning about her every time we take her out. 
Although never having sailed any other junk rigged boat, we have nothing to compare her to, I can see why people who have this kind of rig love them, it’s a joy to sail.
I have to say, with no prior knowledge about the sail and rig, it was a learning curve.
We had several attempts at rigging her and I made the mistake of only placing a single block and tackle at the top of the mast.
I soon regretted this when it came to lifting the sail on our maiden voyage from Kent to Southend. We have now replaced this with two double blocks and the hauling up the sail is now easy.
I would say the rest of the rigging is very typical of other junks. And, yes, you can sail Nicos from the cockpit, single handed, but it is so much more fun to sail with great company.
I can say Nicos makes us smile, and now, after much love and attention from Inga and myself, she has a new lease of life and is like a new boat again.
I will be forever grateful and happy that I received that phone call from my crazy spontaneous friend, to say ‘We have a boat’!
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