Hello all!
My name is Alec and I'm a new member to the JRA. What a great forum full of helpful information (which I am trying to work my way through)
Firstly perhaps an introduction. I'm 35 years old and a bit of a weirdo. Relatively new to sailing and boat ownership, having spent the last few years living nomadically out of my self converted ex prison van I now find myself itching to explore the seas and shores of Europe and beyond! The boat I've gone with is a 33ft Seacracker which needs a fair bit of work to look pretty again which I'm currently working on and, as part of this work I would really love to convert it to a Junk rig and sail off.
I have hundreds of questions and advice on any subject is always welcome but here is a few to kick us off. Does anyone else here live aboard your boats? Is it viable with a junk rig to cruise full time? Will there be any limiting factors of the rig to consider when making plans to travel?
I plan to make as much as I can myself (learning as I go) from the sails to every thing that can be made. The boat is currently at Pin Mill in Ipswich, and I am about to be hauled out for a month to start the work.
I figure due to my total lack of understanding a good place to start would be having a professional help me design the new rig, sails and mast placement especially, so following a link from this forum I've reached out to a lovely man called Alan who is going to do the design for me.
But oh lord, help.
Is there anyone local I can buy a beer for to chat about all this? Anyone willing to take me out on their Junk for a day or so to show me the ropes? (Ha)
Any recommendations for sail cloth to buy? I'd love to have a big ol' purple sail when it's completed for no other reason than I like purple and I think it'll look awesome. I've no idea how or where to get this from and there are many different materials.
How do you build a windvein self steering system? I think I'll need one.
I could literally go on for ever but, for now, hi! I'm Alec. I can wait to meet some or all of you in the coming years and see what this whole sailing lark has to offer.