Bonjour
As I'm rather experienced and own two boats very different my opinion may be of interest.
I'm 70 years old now and I am not as fit as I used to be... I sail and raced since I was 13 years old on all sizes of boats. I own, as a teenager, an old gaffer (a 18 feet yawl). I participated to the first Jester Challenge (single handed transatlantic non-race from Plymouth to Newport RI) on a very racing boat (a 30' Figaro Beneteau). I choose the northern route...
The Junk is "Mingming" the well known minimalist cruiser (Shallow draft, small rudder, no engine, flat sail (modified in "lambda sheeting" and flexible battens to give some - rather bad- camber). A very minimalist cruising boat but unsinkable and watertight.
The pointy is a X95 "Frk.Xand" from X Yachts in Denmark. Outside she is a Half-toner with a spagetty mast, spreaders, huge mainsail, huge furling genoa, 2 smaller gibs, spinnaker, 1.90m draft, 3000Kg weigt,1500kg of keel, huge rudder, inboard engine. Inside she is a very cosy cruising boat. (Yes, the "Mouton à 5 pattes" exists !).
I love them both but I sail them differently.
I sail Frk.Xand mainly in family cruising, almost single handed, (my wife is definitly not a a deck-hand and may be seasick and my grandchild are too small to help efficiently). I use all the sail and as I hate engines I tack quite easily in narrow spaces as "la rivière de Morlaix" or "Scilly islands" or "Chenal de terres de Batz" (Probably these are Chinese (normal for a junky) for an Australian skipper , I'm afraid!). It is hard work but good for health. I sail her single handed from Copenhagen(Denmark) to Rexcel (South Netheland) single hande, then two handed to north Britanny(France) when I bought her.
I use Mingming in a very different way to experiment riggings (Lambda sheeting and, under way, flexible wing-sail with lambda sheeting) and to promote Junkrig in France. I participated for exemple to the 2019 "semaine du Golf du Morbihan" where I was the smallest in a « flotille » of 70 pointies, some of them performant with racing gear. The Golf du Morbihan is a closed maritime area linked to the sea by a narrow gap and housing hundreds of island. The tides are huge and the winds are shifting and funneling; a nice place to sail. There were about 1500 boats running about the area. I almost always arrived last but was far from being ridiculous. The pointies were impressed by the easiness and performance of the junkrig, eathen windward with my far from performant sail. I demonstrated the junkrig by taking aboard some skippers during the lunch moorings (short spaces between the boats moored on buoys and current) they where impressed by the maniability (tacking and even more jibbing) and reefing easyness.
To conclude, today I'm convinced of a few things:
- You may, with some skill and experience, "play" as much with a pointy as with a Junk.
- When you’ve miss something, overcanevased, miss tack, engine issue, torn sail … you are more confortable on a junk because it is easier and faster to react to the situation.
- On a racing pointy the twinning of the sails, mast, rigging... is very demanding and under my experience much more than on a junk. On the other way it is more possible to adapt the shape of the sails to the conditions. If you enjoy it it may a great fun, at least for me, I spend my time strimming.
-On a junk you don't realy need to adapt the power of the sail to the conditions. You just add or supress some sail area if you sail is big enough, and there is no reason not to be so. For triming devils it might be frustrating.
- Today, I enjoy the X95 as much as I can because I know that the time will come (too soon) when I will not physically be able to handle her (winch efforts, deck work..) anymore. The choice will be junk or motor boat.
-On pure sailing performance a racing pointy is a great fun; but most of the said "sailing cruising boats" for sale are more on the motor sailor or barge range under my criteria.They are not better than the ordinarry junk windward; they motorsail, at best, or motor windward.
-The windward performance of a cruising junk is not anymore a problem with modern (cambered, slotted, wing) sails. Rare experiences (X99 in Norway) show that racing boats under Junkrig are performant. Most of the time the cruising junk will be as performant of the equivalent pointy. The skipper makes the difference with the easiness in handling of the junk on one hand and his ability to support the noise of the engine on the other.
-I've broken three masts in my life and I don't think that the weekness of the pointy rigging is a real argument. A well maintained bermudian rigging has no reason to break more or less than a standing mast.
I think that the main issue is what do you want to do with the boat: Performant cruising, relax cruising, visiting, living aboard for long periods, ocean sailing, family sailing, in area with big tides...
For a live aboard cruising boat who should probably be overcharged (under the racing boat criteria at least) and should stay long periods at mooring; I would, for myself and at my age, choose a large, confortable, shallow junk to be able to sail relax single handed and enter any river or lagonn…. perhaps a flat bottom or a scow or a bildge keel to dry in creeks.
Eric