Anonymous wrote:

Have we started giving away free pairs of rose tinted spectacles with each JRA magazine, or something? Does no-one else cast a shrewd eye over things and assess where they are satisfactory, and how they can be made better? Or is it just that having been a designer for nearly fifty years, that is my default state? Anyway, you all know what I think about flat barrel-cut panels, and I'm clearly not getting many people to take in and understand the benefits of the short, low-angled yard and how it works, so I'll say no more, and continue to be the only one marching in step.

You mean this kind of thing? constantly, and when after several hours or days of thought, research, and migraines it turns out to be unworkable, I get grumpy and snap at good friends.

I enjoyed your thread at boatdesign.net "the design of soft wing sails", all 19 pages of it, although most of it was over my head, less so now then before I read it though :)

Bill

David you may well be right, your level of experience is light years ahead of mine. If I ever need to build a new sail I will no doubt look closer at your work. Though given my sewing ability I can’t guarantee the result will be better than I have now.:)

Anonymous wrote:

"Over the years I have bored you folks sick with telling (bragging?) about my boats and their rigs. I have often been met with phrases like ‘apples and oranges’, ‘horses for courses’, ‘fjord flyers’, ‘over-rigged’ and ‘wrinkles’. I have also been instructed that my ‘2-D barrel only’ way of constructing the sail is not as good as more advanced (= complicated) ways. During later years a new ‘truth’ has been developed: Lower yard angles and shorter yards are more efficient or just ‘better’ than full-length high-peaking yards."

Are you deliberately misunderstanding, Arne? Lower yard angles and shorter yards reduce stresses and make the sail easier to handle, and easier to set well. They have little to do with speed to windward (either positive or negative), which is only one element in the equation for cruising boats. They have everything to do with making the boat pleasanter and easier to sail.

You do indeed have the right to make badly constructed sails that look terrible, and to say that you don't care so long as they perform well. Others are concerned with pride in their craftsmanship, and the pleasure of looking at a well made sail.

What concerns me is that you are teaching first time sailmakers to make bad sails. When it would be better to say up front  "this is the way that I do it - it's not the best, there are better ways, but it's good enough for me". In the case of Pol's sail, it was sewn by an experienced machinist who had never made a sail, but was up for the challenge. Give her instructions on making a good sail, and she could make a good sail. Give her instructions on making a bad sail, and she would make a bad sail. It seems that instruction on how these high peaked sails put quite considerable loads on the peak and throat were lacking, anyway, as Pol has had to make two repairs in the first three weeks of use.

David, I think you forgot to take your Prosaic ... Arne's sail making methods have been used to make quite a number of very acceptable sails, including his own. I have also made a few sails using his methods and had very acceptable results. Arne's methods make it possible for relatively unskilled people to make an acceptable sail and that is a good thing. There may be a few bad ones, but they were not made by Arne... if you cannot get a respectable sail using Arne's methods, you are not likely to get better results using traditional sail making methods as they are an order of magnitude more difficult.

Lastly, yard angle is a function of balance, more balance, lower angle, less balance, higher angle. Something that I'm sure you know. There is nothing extreme about Arne's yard angles, all his sails are straight out of the Hassler copy book and are very conservative.

I'd take either variety of junk rig and be thrilled with it I suspect, I like how both look, ease of manufacture, simplicity, and ridiculous amounts of square footage are all appealing hallmarks of the junk rig.

The more styles of junk rig there are the more people will find something that ticks all their boxes, which could mean more junk rig conversions, and more people thinking about how to make them better, that's the recipe that created the junk rig in the first place.


With that said, I'll probably go with an aero junk, at least partly because all the complicated parts are done in wood and not on a sewing machine :)

Bill

When I decided to go JR on Redwing there was very little information out that was easy to find. I had read Annie's book and soon after I borrowed a copy PJR from a friend. I scoured the net for information, photos and videos and I discovered the Yahoo group. By that stage I was leaning towards the Fennix rig because I liked the fan sail. It may have been Arne who pointed out the problems with the rig I don't know but I then discovered Arne's work on cambered sails. Victor Winterhun designed a rig for me based on Arne's work and using Arne's methods, apart from batten sleeves (wishing I had used them) I built my sail. It has given me some very spirited sailing and a few heart in mouth moments to when I was overpowerd...don't forget to reef.

I like my sail.

Since then there has been a lot of work done, split rig sails, David Tyler's fan sails and wing sails. And I have really enjoyed reading about David's sail R&D, not to mention his travels.

There are still people more than happy with there HM flat cut sails but it was Arne who came up with a simple method of putting camber into panels

As for damage, I broke a yard but that was rot and a built in weakness and I've slightly bent an alloy batten but that was being over canvassed.