Hello Mark, I see our messages appeared almost simultaneously, and apologies for drifting slightly off topic.

Most of the sailing season this year has been spent in converting Branwen, a Wylo 32 design, from gaff cutter to junk. First hoist of my home made sails, shown here, was on September 1st. Sea trials commenced the day after and concluded after a Biscay crossing to Spain, in conditions ranging from glassy to near gale. I'm very happy with the rig, which I've found to be well balanced, close winded, fast and, above all, easy to handle. The sails are made of polyester sailcloth, using Arne Kverneland's master sail patterns for the design. You'll find these under Junk Information, in his Public Domain files.

Conversion work started on April Fool's day and took exactly 6 months of full time work. I've submitted an article about the job, which should appear in the next issue of the JRA magazine.  

Asmat Khan wrote:

My schooner Branwen has a vertical mainmast and the foremast is raked forward 6 degrees, which helps to keep the foresail quiet: gravity tends to swing it outboard. 

Thank you for joining the thread. Branwen is a sturdy looking craft! I really like the choice of sail color. I see you have had a JR for about a year now. Were you able to sail her much since her conversion? How do you like your rig after a season?

Cheers!

Asmat’s experience with batten stagger on a vertical mainmast and forward-raked foremast is interesting.

On the foresail, I guess the mast simply grabs the batten parrels as the sail comes down and gently leads the battens a bit aft as they stow on the boom.

Now I have had a closer look at the mainsail of Asmat’s Branwen: This sail is very similar to my sails and I would therefore suspect that this is what happens as Asmat reefs the sail.

• ·         With the cambered panels (=no diagonal strength) the battens will shift forward as they are about to land on the boom, known as negative batten stagger.

• ·         As long as the halyard still pulls forward and the batten parrels are long, this will continue as more panels are lowered.

• ·         The result is that the boom will protrude and the sheets will get caught when raising the sail again.

This is how I have solved the problem on my boats (Johanna, Broremann and Frøken Sørensen), all with vertical masts:

• ·         During construction of the sail, I cut off the clew corner and shorten the boom 4-5%, compared to the rest of the battens.

• ·         When rigging the sail, I make the batten parrels semi-short, that is, just long enough to keep friction tolerable when hoisting and lowering the sail.

• ·         When taking the first reef, the sail tends to move forward about 4% of the boom, but thanks to the shortened boom, the boom will not protrude from the reefed bundle.

• ·         As I reef more panels, or dump the whole sail, this happens: The interaction between the semi-short batten parrels and mast  now gently takes over and leads the sail down without further forward movement (negative batten stagger).

Asmat, could I suggest you try attaching the aft end of the mainsail’s battenparels one slot forward of today’s position (maybe except on the two top battens)?

Cheers, Arne

Hi Mark,

Arion's mast is also raked forward by three degrees. It was not uncommon on Chinese junks, and many yacht schooners rake their foremasts also.  I did it because it has the advantage of holding the sail out when the sheet is well eased on a broad reach or run, especially in light weather, and because I wanted to move the CE a little further forward from the position it would have been with a vertical rake.  My mast partners could not go any further forward.  In Practical Junk Rig (PJR, a good investment for a junk sailor) Hasler and McLeod recommend a vertical mast.  Either is good.   Raking the mast aft is not, as the weight of yard and battens will make the sail swing inboard in light conditions.  In a swell, they do crash around sometimes, but in smooth water, a vertical or forward rake will hold the sail out and the boat will ghost downwind in the lightest breath of air.

Positioning the mast is easy.  First draw your sail plan, then superimpose it over a drawing of the bermudian sail plan so that the centre of effort of both is the same, or the junk's CE is slightly further forward perhaps.  The mast position should be about 10 to 15% abaft the luff of the junk sail.  I'd recommend reading PJR before making any firm decisions, to build up some theoretical knowledge.

Your final decision will be to decide what kind of junk sail you want (there are a few options, though I favour the "Arne modified" Hasler McLeod sail) and whether it is to be flat-cut, cambered, hinge-battened etc.

The great price of Arion's conversion was that I had to give up the V berth.  I used to love lying with my head in the bows under the open forehatch on hot nights, though I had to remember, when I woke up, not to sit up quickly or I'd bang my head.  After conversion, I ended up with two berths, divided by the mast, but I always touched the mast when I rolled over, which woke me up.  And in winter the aluminium mast is cold!  I could have insulated it with some soft padding, but there really wasn't enough space left.  I had two seats just aft of the berths, forming a tiny saloon, and I modified these to be the same height as the berths and moved the berths aft, so that only my feet were alongside the mast.  Then I made the saloon table lower to form part of the bunk and regained a double bunk of sorts, albeit one with a mast near the foot of the bunk.  It is a bit like having your dog sleeping on the bed!

Now I have to make up the bunk every night before I sleep, but I have developed a quick and lazy way of doing that.  Wouldn't do for the Queen, as the English say, but good enough for a scruffy bachelor.  Life is a series of compromises, as are boats!