Graeme wrote:
Howard, I think the reason why dinghy designers such as Welsford (and Bolger) have tended to avoid the junk rig is because in its normal form it is a very inconvenient rig for a dinghy. Its complicated, and best suited to a moored vessel where (after the usual preliminary fiddling and untangling) it can be left set up permanently, ready for instant deployment.
Most dinghy designers seem to have slavishly followed the bermudan rig which also does not sit small dinghies particularly well, although a single triangular sail can be, at least, simple.. The simplest rigs (sprit rig and the various Western lug rigs) seem to be better than a junk rig, because of their simplicity, and also it is desirable to be able to fit the spars inside the length of a small boat. The sprit rig is best, in my opinion, because it requires the shortest spars for a given amount of sail area. Welsford, Bolger and others have had the imagination to revive these early, simple rigs.
The junk rig is complicated. Like the old windjammers, complexity is the price you generally pay to have a rig which can be managed with the minimum of manpower.
There have been a few small dinghies equipped with a junk rig but so far no-one has produced a junk especially designed to be quick and simple to dismantle and set up, which has to be done more or less every time one gets the dinghy out to go for a sail. No-one, that is, until Arne recently produced his Halibut rig in response to the recent JRA dinghy design competition. It looks as though this new rig is going to be step forward in the evolution of a small, convenient junk rig for dinghies and if it proves to be so, it will be of great value, because the simple rigs all share one disadvantage in that they can not so easily adjust sail area quickly in response to changing conditions. A little boat can be easily overwhelmed in a sudden change in wind conditions and it would be wonderful to be able to enjoy the advantage of a simple junk rig: the ability to reduce or remove sail area almost instantly when needed, with no fuss, flapping canvas etc.
Some good points from Graeme. I am a big fan of the junk rig, having owned and sailed 'Footprints' for 12 years. When we built the new junk sail it was quite complicated to set up, and took some months to sort out. However since then has required almost no maintenance or tweaking for 9 years now. On a cruising yacht of that size, 10 meters, the junk rig made wonderful sense for its ease of use and effectiveness. After I sold 'Footprints' I owned a reasonably high performance bermudan rigged monohull for 18 months. I did not really enjoy the rig, and found myself wishing for the simplicity of my previous junk rig.
As some will know when building my current 6 meter cruising catamaran I really wanted to use a junk rig, but for a variety of reasons this did not work out. Instead I designed and fitted a modified bermudan gaff rig with a high aspect gaff main, and a small self tacking headsail on a furler. That rig has now proven so easy to use, and effective for the boat, that there is no reason to have a junk rig on this catamaran. I did utilise as much of my junk rig knowledge and experience in designing this rig as possible and have kept everything very low tech and simple, even to the point of making my own jib furler. I do however certainly hope to own a junk rig yacht again sometime in the future.
Likewise with dinghy sailing rigs. It would be fun to experiment with a junk rig on a dinghy provided the rig can be kept simple and light weight, and easy to stow on the mother ship. I would see this as needing to be in a simple bundle where mast sail, and spars are all preconnected and ready to be stepped. Otherwise I note that many traditional tenders are designed for a simple lug rig, as Graeme has pointed out, and this makes for a very effective tender rig.