Dear Kevin and dear Junk Rigg Community!

Thank you for this wonderful introduction and also congratulations to creating this community. 

The Heraclitus was designed as an ocean going vessel for art, science and adventure and has been going for nearly 50 years, something like 270,000 nm around the world, to Antarctica, up the Amazon. Hundreds of people have sailed on the ship, done research, even theatre performances in ports and very remote places. So many of this crew have contributed to rebuilding the ship now and we can't wait to get back out to sea to new adventures, hoping to launch in 2024. Our new expedition will voyage in the Atlantic continuing the work we did in the Mediterranean, documenting sea-cultures, their stories, their maritime knowledge and how they all cope with the changing weather impacts. 

Indeed we may get new sails sponsored and would like to improve performance at this opportunity. We've been in Roses shipyard completely rebuilding the Heraclitus, stop and go, stop and go, nearly vanished after covid, but finally we are now ready to paint and outfit and talk about sails. We are so ready to go back to sea. 

The Heraclitus has quite a short keel, so not much lateral resistance. We cannot extend our keel at this point, as it would add prohibitive amounts to our budget. However, we hope that we could adapt the sail shape/batons to gain more flexibility of sailing upwind and maybe a little faster when there is less wind while not compromising safety. At this point we can only do about 10 degrees. 

The Heraclitus weighs 100 tons, with water and fuel up to 115 tons. 24 m overall and 6m wide, 2.6 average depth. 

Our batons are made of stiff aluminium pipes. They are strong and hold the sails nicely in place, hardly ever break, but are also heavy to handle. 

Our parameters are safety-economy-speed-comfort. 

We would really appreciate any ideas you may have. 

Greetings and a happy and prosperous New Year. 

Christine