Corey

I had much the same experience as David with my boat ”Malena” (23’ Albin Viggen), back in the nineties. I used to say that changing to cambered sail, was like fitting a turbocharger to an engine.

If you bother with looking up the old newsletters, no. 24, 26 and 30, you will see how I stumbled my way from a flat sail, via camber through hinged battens, then hastily made cambered panels with tucks at luff and leech, and finally with a new cambered panel sail, using the “barrel method”. 

Actually  -  now that I am familiar with the method, I find it very easy to make a cambered panel junk sail.

Two big assets with the method:

1.       I only need floor space enough to loft one panel at a time  -  sometimes I haven’t seen the whole sail stretched out until I hoist it.

2.       The “barrel only method”, combined with my “amateur method” of assembling the panels along the battens, lets me get away with passing very little sailcloth under the arm of the sewing machine. This saves a lot of work and space.

Rigging the cambered sail is very similar to the flat sail, but I guess that I use the upper Luff Hauling Parrel (“Throat Hauling Parrel”) and Yard Hauling Parrel a bit more actively, to keep away diagonal creases, and I also fit my sails with the standing Hong Kong Parrels, to aid with this.

Good luck with your project!

Arne