Hi, all. Hoping Slieve will comment on this but all others' comments also welcome.

I have a 40-year old Westerly Windrush 25' 1" LOA. Nice old boat, very solidly built, but ponderously slow, and won't point, and reluctant to tack. This is partly due to her triple keel arrangement, which is otherwise very convenient. But I am unhappy with the rig. Apart from being in dire need of upgrade, the horrible main boom roller reefing means that with any reef the main loses all shape and she points and goes even less well. Also has quite a lot of weather helm under full sail, surprising when you look at the lead of the CE on CLR (which is well aft, again due to keel arrangement).

Thinking of converting to Split Junk, and have been happily devouring all the info I can get hold of on the subject. What I propose is as follows:

New 8.5" hollow wood unstayed mast positioned well forward. Split Junk main of 352 sq ft (old rig around 312 sq ft). 30% balance (any more would move the mast too far aft or the CE too far forward). 1.68 Aspect Ratio to keep the mast LAP below 28ft. This would improve SA/disp from about 18 to 21.

To my mind this conversion would seem well-suited to this boat, but would welcome the observations of the more experienced with this rig.