Adam,

The CE of these sails sits only an inch or two forward of the middle of the sail (boom). Could it be an idea to shift the sail 20-30cm (8-12") forward of the shown position? Then try to draw in a mast which gives a balance between 13 and 15%, and see if that can be done without ripping up too much of the interior.

Good luck!

Arne

Hi, Adam.
The 13-15% mast balance I suggested was for the shown sail with a yard angle of 70°. The outer limits for that yard angle is in principle 0 to 17% balance, but with lower balance than 12% you may have to make the mast taller since the halyard angle is best kept within 30° from vertical.

In case you need to increase the mast balance of the sail, you can increase it up to about 25% by lowering the yard angle to 60°. If you go further than 25% balance, the sail may get unstable (this is outside my area of experience).

In that case, I suggest you change to the Split JR, SJR. The limit there, I think is around 33-35%.

Good luck!
Arne

Hi Adam,

just a couple of items to be thinking about. Timber and Aluminium tube generally come in a maximum length of 6 meters, so having the boom and batten lengths a maximum of 6 meters saves a lot of work in constructing the rig. Sailcloth of the type used by most junkies has a width of 1.5 meters. On the rig you show I would suggest a five panel lower section to the sail which should allow the panels to be cut from a single piece of cloth. This would save a lot of work and wastage in making the sail.

David.

Hi Arne - mast placement is negotiable. The original plan was to use theexisting hatch but that seemed too far from the Bow for good balance. 

Using the hatch would also destroy the heads and hanging locker while upsetting access to the v-berth. 

The location in your drawing would put the mast through the middle of the v-berth. I'm ok with that. To do any work I have to remove the original hard plastic headliner and will need to lift the floor of the berth to get at the bilge for a mast step. No matter where that mast goes in the v-berth the same steps apply. Cut. Gut and then drill a hole.  

Now for me the question is still sourcing the mast and battens. I'll look up your notes on ingeborg to see what you did about battens. 

Thank you for your help on this - it is very much appreciated. 

Thanks Len - I did find Metal Supermarkets - and their prices are reasonable. 

On the mast question - I worry about setting up the alignment for adhering a wooden topmast to the aluminium bottom. I don't have access to a yard that would let me do that kind of work for very long so ideally a single piece would be sought. 

Valmont structures might have what I need. But really I'm hoping the City of Hamilton might have retired posts if I can hunt the right person down to talk to.