Hi Ian

Have contacted Gary Allan the owner of "Grace Ellen" Pictured.

With constructive comments from Gary, I intend to pursue this concept with my "Shoe Horn"  build.

It occurs to me that the right weight of sail cloth, yard and battens, with a single part halyard  led back to a winch next to the companionway hatch. should eliminate sufficient friction and have enough weight to reef as a normal junk rig.

 

Cheers: Mike 

 

 

 

 

Copy of my email to Mike, for public interest:

Hi Mike

I think you are right in assuming that Gary prefers to keep it uncluttered and work at the mast.  There is no reason you could not bring the reefing lines aft.  On a bermudian rig, you usually only have 2 or 3 reef positions, whereas on a junk, you can drop one panel at a time, which gives you a lot more options.  You'd only need to lead tack lines back from each of the horizontal battens however - in my case that would be 4 - as the three panels above that on my rig are fanned, with little luff between the forward end of the battens, so that is still manageable.  On the plus side, you would not need to tie down the leech as you would in a bermudian sail, as the sheet fulfills that function, though I do sometimes tie the battens together at the leech when running with deep reefs, to avoid the risk of a fan up.  Arne Kverneland has devised a system for preventing fan ups without tying the battens that might be worth investigating.  I have not tried it yet.

His name is Gary Allen and his boat is called Grace Ellen.  I have his mobile phone number and will email it to you privately.  Tell him you were recommended by Graham Cox on the yacht Arion.

Graham Cox wrote:

  However, I am not sure if they can be reefed and furled in "automatic mode" from the cockpit or a Jester type of arrangement.  Gary goes to the mast to handle his sails, and from memory, I think he needs to adjust his topping lifts every time he reefs, and has a tack downhaul that he moves up the luff to the lowest working batten, against which he then tensions the halyard like one would with a gaff or bermudian sail.  He said that if he did not do this, the sail did not set well.  Gary is a traditional sailor who prefers to work on deck but I'm very happy to stay in Arion's cockpit these days!.

Well the above would be a major consideration when thinking about this type of sail. One major bonus of the junk rig is being able to do everything from the cockpit, and when I release my halyard the sail is down instantly. The need to tension the luff is also a consideration because that of course is how the fullness is controlled on a conventional sail. I am always amazed at the tautness of the luff on my sail without any halyard tension.

Thanks Graham for the info. It would still be interesting to explore the concept further.

I was having a tidy up of my computer and I found this photo:

http://junkrigassociation.org/page-1401723/43590476

I seem to recall this Australian yacht being mentioned in one of the forum topics recently, and that the sails have been built using conventional sail making techniques for putting camber into a sail, and then hinged battens have been added to the sail creating what seems to me to be the best of both worlds, that is junk sails with camber but without the complication of depending on hinged battens or trying to build camber into each individual sail panel, and with all the handling advantages of a junk sail. Looking at the photo the sails seem to be setting beautifully and the battens appear to be quite lightweight for the size of the sails. The battens probably do not need to be as strong as what would normally be required for a junk sail as they are probably performing a slightly different function, that is the sail and the battens working together to create shape. I know the yacht has made a couple of trips to New Zealand and I have heard from several sources that it has very impressive sailing performance. The yacht by the way is a Hereschoff design of about 11 meters and has lee boards.

So I am wondering as a point of discussion whether anyone else has built junk sails using this method and whether we have overlooked the obvious. I am also wondering if anyone else has any information on this boat and the construction of her sails.

PS, I am not sure if I have created the link to the photo properly so maybe someone can sort this out, the photo is in the Technical Forum illustrations.

Webmaster Edit: Address converted to link - Chris