Well, thank you, David and David! 

I would never have expected so quick and complete replies. Again, not like it was needed, but it convinces further me of the spirit of this forum and the friendliness of all it's members!

So, your answers are quite reasuring to me.

I am very tempted by the boat listed on "Swap, sell or buy" as "Liz - 11.2m junk rig schooner". What keeps me then? Well I am a french citizen, the boat is english, so it makes things more complicated. But the main reason is, what do I do with it until I am ready to sail, that is, not before 2 years time I guess.
The plan is to move from south of France to West Indies, so it means organizing a transatlantic crossing, at the same time as selling our actual home, finding a piece of land there, build a house, organizing our move, settle down so my wife can continue working (she'll be retired only 5 years after me).But who knows. 

So, you see, coping with 2 junk sails now seems a very secondary worry!

Please feel free to comment and tell me what you think!

Hi Patrick,

the reason for two masts is sail size. The cross over point seems to be about 32 feet or when the sail exceeds 700 square feet. 20 feet seems to be the maximum length for stock timber and aluminium extrusions and sails over about 500 square feet need battens longer than this unless you go with a very high aspect ratio. Battens longer than 20 feet seem to break much more easily in my experience. With a junk rig you normally only set one sail on a mast so if you need more sail area you need more masts!

As far as handling is concerned two sails are no problem, in fact they can provide a much more balanced rig that is quite easy to get to self steer from hard on the wind to a quartering reach. In fact I have had a schooner rig where the sails could overpower the helm's ability to steer the boat. The sails needed to be adjusted in order to bring the boat from hard on the wind to a broad reach, the helm alone was not enough. Yes setting sail means you have to raise two sails but I never found this to be a problem. Sheeting in you sheet the foresail in first, then pull in the aft sail until the helm balances and you are set. When bearing off you let out the aft sail first then adjust the foresail until the helm is balanced, this usually means the foresail will be sheeted in tighter than the aft and the resulting "v" between the two sails gives the self steering effect.

David.