Hi Joseph,

Having looked further at the Westerly Nomad I’d like to add a few more comments to my earlier post, where I was rather guessing at the situation.

From Sailboatdata.com I got a reasonable drawing of the rig and out of curiosity ran a few numbers. It reports the sail area as 187sq.ft, but looking at the earlier Westerly 22 the area is 227sq.ft, and as they are both basically the same boat I looked further. From the drawings the 187 figure is the full main plus fore triangle, and the full main and No1 Genoa comes to ~234 and main + No2 Genoa~ 213.sq.ft. Allowing for scaling error it would seem to make sense to go for ~220 sq.ft for a SJR. Quickly drawing that in would place the mast through the coachroof just with enough room for the hatch in front of it to open to 90deg. That might mean removing the door to the heads and replacing it with a curtain, but otherwise should be not too bad.

I’m not surprised Frank’s Westerly 22 junk tacked through 180deg, and Annie’s Westcoaster probably had a similar flat Hasler/Mcleod rig. I reckon that with a SJR you should get enough windward ability to enjoy sailing such a fun boat. It should be at least as good as the original rig to windward and much better as the sheets are eased. It would be sooooo easy to sail.

With the mast placed there and 33% balance the boat would be a great little coaster, in and out of moorings and small harbours, and with a draft of 2.25 ft you could drop a kedge and sail into and park on the beach and walk ashore. A pair of oars or a yuloh would mean no engine oil to change except for the odd bottle of beer. Magic.

Small is beautiful. My current boat is a 95. Yes, 95 centimetres and I had 8 good races this morning in a couple of hours. Great fun.

But don’t forget, I’m biased.

Cheers, Slieve.

Not necessarily. It would depend on what type of junk rig you decide to use.

A Hasler Mcleod shape rig would probably place the mast in the hatch, but a Split Rig could possibly place it in the coach roof behind the hatch and leave the escape hatch useable. The good windward performance of the split rig would be very useful as the hull with its triple keel configuration and smallish rudder is a very poor performer to windward. The Westerly Nomad is based on the Westcoaster 20 and when I asked Annie Hill how their junk rigged Missie Lee sailed to windward she replied, "It didn't."

This  hull will need all the help it can get from the rig to give enjoyable performance for local cruising, but as Annie also said, "they had a lot of fun with her."

Cheers, Slieve.