Ok, thanks. In my conversion I'm having difficulties in trying to decide between 3 and 4 mm tube. This 10swg is in between...

It's also interesting to notice that the stock tube lenghts are totally different here: no matter what the diameter, the length sold seems to be 6 meters.

I'm following this wirh interest, but in order to do so, I'd need a hint on one detail: as someone living with metric system, I have no idea what kind of a unit is swg.

How thick is a 4in x 10swg tube in millimeters, please? Three or four?

As already mentioned under the Sail Cloth for JR thread, David Tyler has suggested that I go for the Weaverbird sail plan and offered to make the sail for me too! Many thanks David. I have now ordered the batten tubes, which are rather expensive but accept that the mast tube and the sail, because you are making it, will be cheaper than I expected.

Next job to order the tube for the mast. I followed the link put here a while ago by another very helpful JRA member and it took me to Aluminium Warehouse. They can sell a 5m length of tube 4 ins x 10swg for £78.77, which sounds very reasonable but how I wish it was possible to get a 6m length! Is everyone sure this is not possible from anywhere? It would certainly help to prevent the mast being so top heavy when I put a wooden extension on.

I'm looking forward to making the tabernacle and pleased to find, after a visit to my boat, that the bow buoyancy under the bunk will not be affected with the mast/tabernacle going in the new position. Now got my copy of Practical Junk Rig through the post, so got my nose in that now to better understand everything.   David

Here’s a first shot at the rig. This is the Fantail sail, with the bottom panel removed and then scaled down to 14 sq m.

It looks quite good. The mast LAP is 5m, so you could use a tube as is, with no extension needed. This fits within the boat’s length for trailing. It would be in a tabernacle, which is near perpendicular to the deck, with its bottom where the existing mast strut is now. The sheeting looks OK.

I'm sure I will get there in the end, but feel I am going round in circles a bit now!

Can you please show me a Fantail Mk2 sailplan, David? That sounds as if it will fit, but need to look at the CE etc with the boat. Having followed the links that Stuart gave I can see the hinged mast idea could be rather complicated. Perhaps with a boat my size it will be easy enough to step the mast but I must be able to do it on my own and it is hard to know how heavy or cumbersome it will be without actually having it in my hands. I am tempted to get a 5m tube to see what it feels like then make choices later.