January 2025  Paradox Thu

By Eerik Mee

The building started 2015 and she was first launched in 2017. I had been fascinated by the small Matt Layden’s Paradox with shallow draft, also that there were discussions about scaling up the plans by 20%, but no information that any boat had been completed this way. I also fancied the Asian ancient ships, with those beautiful sails, handled by a complicated system of lots of sheets… Until I happened to land on the Junk Rig Association website, where it said this was the easiest rig to handle; and that for reefing there is no need to put your coffee cup down. I found that I had a chance to try out two in one.

Building the hull was straightforward; although some modifications were made here and there, many of the good feature ideas were borrowed from earlier builds, some new were invented. From borrowed ones I would mention one of the solar panels being on top of the cabin; and working through an acrylic window in the hatch, when the hatch is open. Invented would be the way the hatch is watersealed: hatch sides being tapered towards forward end, and the frame below hatch similarly; so, the seal is only touching the frame when the hatch is closed. LOA is about 5.1m or 16ft 8in; beam 1.5m of 4ft 10in; draft with lifted rudder blade about 275cm or 11in.

For designing the sail, Arne’s ideas were followed, worked out with contribution from JRA members and with a lot of help from Arne, sewn by myself. What came out is a 14m2 (150.7 sqft) cambered sail with 6 panels.

I am located in Estonia, about 150km or 100miles from the sea, so most seasons I have been on the lake nearby home, but the season 2020 I had a summer off and I was sailing along the coast of Estonia, doing some Island hopping on the way. 4 weeks total of sailing, experiencing different weather conditions; roughly 2 nights on anchor and 1 in the marina; making 25 to 30 NM a day, with longest passage of 49 NM a day. Cruising speed 4 – 5kn.

Sailing her is a lot of fun, even in chill weather you are sitting comfortably in the cabin with your head out.

Paradox is a heavily ballasted boat, and combined with a not very high pointing ability makes it a bit of a struggle to go upwind in certain wind conditions, but other than that, sailing her is a pure pleasure.

Eerik's sailing Youtube channel is here

Our "Boat of the Month" Archive is here, and the forum discussion for comments and candidate suggestions is here