Annie Hill wrote:I have no engineering knowledge, but common sense would dictate that if the unstayed mast carried x amount of pointy sail, it should carry x amount of junk sail.  More than a few Freedoms have been changed over to junk rig, and to the best of my knowledge and belief, they have invariably used the original masts.

Hello Michael,

Our Alanouwoly is a Freedom 28 that we converted to JR about 15 years ago on the original masts.  We did suffer a mast failure (on a JR rally some years ago) but that was due to a damaged mast rather than the change of rig.  You rightly comment that the mast positions on the Freedoms make them ideal candidates for JR conversion.  Good luck!

I mostly agree with Annie, but actually, when sailing close-hauled, as long as a boat’s stability is not increased by adding ballast, a bigger sail will not put harder loads on the mast than the original sail. One just reaches the point of reefing at a lower wind speed. My reason for suggesting a 22sqm junksail instead of the 18.5sqm original, was that I assumed that the junk sail would be the only sail on board, so had to be generous to go well downwind. Remember, Garry Hoyt has equipped the Freedom 21 cat rig with a very clever spinnaker, which probably doubles the sail area for downwind sailing.

Arne

here the spinnaker can be seen

 

Arne Kverneland wrote:

Michael,
I think that the Freedom 21 should work extremely well with a JR (surprise, surprise...). The forward position of the BM mast calls for a fairly wide sail (boom, B=3.8m) to bring the CE a bit aft of the CE of the Bermuda sail. Now I made a quick sketch  (second attempt, the first had B=4.00m), aiming for a SA=22sqm. I have tucked the sail quite far aft on the mast, but drawn it with vertical luff and leech. There would be nothing wrong in canting the sail a bit aft until the luff is nearly parallel to the mast. To get a detail drawing, all you have to do is to pick a master sail from Chapter 4 in “The Cambered Panel Junk Rig”, the one with AR=1.95 and just crimp it to B=3.80m.

The big rudder of the Freedom 21 ensures good control. After all, that boat was born to carry a cat rig.

Good luck,
Arne

 

Thank you very much Arne, There is a Freedom 21 in the yard where I keep my boat (W coast Scotland) There is another for sale which I'm chasing! Your drawing is most helpful but I'm wondering if the mast can be used? here are the specs http://www.freedom21.info/F21AluminumMast.pdf 

Mike

Hi, My interest is that the mast on a Freedom 21 is in the 'correct' position on a for changing to a JR. However, I don't know if it is possible to use the existing mast even though it is un-stayed or if another one should repace it?. 

Is there any member who has used a JR on a Freedom 21? At first sight it seems an obvious thing to do, giving extra area and using a hull optimised for a single sail (Cat rig)