Hi Rad,

my former boat Arcadian is 50 ft long and weighs 17 1/2 tons. When I rerigged her as a junk I designed a schooner rig of 1200 sq ft. With her flat cut sails she is a little under canvassed at that, so I would recommend 1500 sq ft as suggested by David Tyler. I would suggest two equal sails of 750 sq ft as any larger than that becomes too much to handle. I would also suggest that the foresail be rigged with a split junk or aero junk sail as this will allow more of the sail to be forward of the mast and will help to give a larger gap between the sails for a decent sheeting angle for the foresail.  The gaff rigged example of a sister ship has a fairly long bowsprit and a ketch rig which suggests that the one problem that you may have is getting sufficient sail forward for balance. Using an aero junk or split junk foresail will help in this respect. Using cambered panels will also help the rig to develop more power and possibly allow you to use smaller sails.

Let us know how the design goes. All the best with the project.

David

Hi David, thanks for your reply. I had planned a mizzen in a gaff setup. I'd be fine to go that way again, but I do want it manageable with minimum handling.

Here is Ros Beithe's sister ship, another BIM trawler, converted to a live aboard and sailed to the Caribbean and back again and all around the British Isles: Ros Aillther (Look for the pic of the blue trawler with gaff rig)

She is Gaff rigged, and my original plan. Notice that the sail area is not massive and I'm told she sails at 8 knots! Very comfortably. But when asked how he tacks her from the pilot house, he chuckled and replied, "I don't tack!" LOL

I imagine tacking with no challenge on Ros Beithe using a JR.  

I may be premature with this post, but I'm keen and excited at my recent discoveries of so much action in the JR community, and want to begin "early" in my rigging process.

I am reposting a bit of my introduction from the intro thread for clarity: 

Presently, I am refurbishing/refitting a 1964 Irish BIM Trawler Ros Beithe (pronounced Ros Baha). BIM is the Irish fishing board. She's a 14.9m (49') larch on oak hull, with a 16' beam. She's less than 2m draft (sorry for the measurement crossover, I live in N.Ireland but am from California. This place is all messed up with metric/imperial-so I go back and forth).

I bought her two years ago, February 2015. Did a bulk of removal work (tearing her down to the deck beams) and a bit of building up in the water in a sweet large town on the west coast of Ireland, Sligo. A must visit if ever in the region.

Anyway, recently two significant things happened in my project. One, I moved her across Donegal bay to Killybegs, where I've pulled her out onto the hard in order to fit a steel cabin roof, allowing me to remove the two lateral beams at deck level that come to about my neck when down below. And two, I began reading Annie Hall's great book, Voyaging on a small income.

My youthful dream, having been around boats since I was in Art school blowing glass, was to buy a chinese junk cheap and sail the world blowing glass to make my way. 30 years later, part of that dream is still burning bright... the voyager in me. But, for the first time in my experience, hearing about the JR via Annie Hill, I see how the other part of my dream is fitting in & I have been convinced this is the way to go. It's simplicity and, how it fits that old dream, as well as the look, when I saw a picture of Peregrin's gorgeous sail in Arne Kaverneland's brochure here on designing the rig. As an artist, I'll definitely be designing some graphic beauties into the canvas I'll have to play with!

Ok, so that's a lot of my story. Now the situation as to where I stand...I've a blank canvas from the hull up, to some degree. 

I really like the tabernacle idea, and think I have a plan to suit the ideas I want to use.

This is originally a hull built to sail back in the early 1900s. The Main sail was removed in the design over the years and replaced with a derick for pulling nets from the sea. She has a high pilot house, which I hope to mount the large mast/sail via tabernacle at the fore of allowing it to swing forward with no obstruction.

Here are my drawings using a bit of Arne's booklet, also a couple images of the boat:  Ros Beithe

I wanted to check in here about if, what I see as a pretty layout in the rig, makes sense. I've not done all the computations, and in fact find that a bit tricky. But I got a fair bit of the initial worked out, specifically the CLR as shown in the drawing, and some of Arne's suggested angles at the boom and top fore of the sail.

I simply would love some early feedback. I do think this is a fairly odd boat of choice from what I've read about, but for my 7 strong family, five kids and my partner and I, and what I love about the classic feel of the old girl, I love her. So, how do I put what seems the sensible choice of rig on her successfully?

Many thanks,

Rad