For boat on boat tests there is one design that stands out for a number of reasons.

1. Small enough for the rigs to be fairly easily made at a reasonable cost.

2. High enough ballast ratio not to be overly effected by crew weight and placement.

3. Sea kindly enough to accept the full range of weather conditions.

4. Less effected than most by short nasty sea states.

5. Reasonable sized rudder for good control.

The only problem is that it is a popular racing boat so fleets tend to be fairly highly tuned so not ideal for comparison with a cruising junk rig.

Oh, I forgot to mention the name of the design. The humble FolkBoat. Perhaps it could called something like Jester?

Just a thought, Slieve.

No Alan, it is not aimed specifically at you, but it is on record that JRA funds have been paid on a couple of occasions for commercial work done in the past without the elected officers being informed, and that there was no return for the membership. I am now also aware that during the period I was working as R & D Secretary at my own expense, even to the extent to buying a new computer to enable me to do the work, that significant regular payments were being paid out of the Association's funds to a commercially interested member for the work I was doing without members or elected committee members like myself being informed.

I do not want to see the funds donated to the JRA being used other than as intended by the donors. I accept that the members need someone to provide services they are not able or prepared to do themselves, but I am not happy to be asked for help, which I freely give only to discover later that it is due to the inability of those making profit from my work to understand what they are doing, and without them informing me.

There should be clear proof that that the membership would gain before funds are handed out, and having seen some experienced junk rig sailors needing help to get the best out of the split rig on Poppy I wonder who could or would perform the necessarily lengthy and boring repetitive tests required to achieve a meaning-full result. As said, only boat on boat tests in reasonable sized boats will remove the uncertainty of wind/ sea state variations as demonstrated by the Americas Cup contestants, and that requires a huge commitment.

Cheers, Slieve.

Let me share my experience of two boat testing with you. When we were developing the SwingWing rig, we used Lasers as our test boats because Robin and I both had one already. Our objective was to see if the SwingWing was better to windward than the standard junk, and to see if there were any problems with the SwingWing that needed t be ironed out before we committed to a full size rig.

As we both raced our Lasers at Hamble River SC we had a fairly good idea of our relative helming performance, and so we swapped boats frequently to cancel that variable out. We proved to our satisfaction that the windward performance was better, regardless of helmsman, and learned that if there was any gap in the front of the SwingWing sail the whole thing would blow up like a balloon, which was only fast backwards. We also learned about sticky hinges (we were using varnished wood battens in a varnished ply socket). I think we lined them with formica.

They did the job for us, at the cost of only making the miniature SwingWing, but we still have no objective data about the performance of either rig.

I would advocate Lasers as test boats because they are to be found all over the world, are all pretty much the same, and have an unstayed mast so all you have to make is the experimental sail. However, they are quite tippy, so you need to be willing to get wet.

Nowadays, being older and wiser, but less fit and less keen to get wet, I would prefer to use a displacement boat as David suggests, but the problem then is finding a matched pair in several locations around the world where junkies might want to try out new rig variations. I think it is logistically impractical. What is the most widespread keelboat? HUnter Sonata, perhaps? Folkboat? I don't know.

If we go the instrument route the logistics become much easier, and we get some hard data at the end as well. 'Nuff said?

Graham Cox wrote:
Alan, I am sure that, like myself, the majority of the members of the JRA do not believe you have a mercenary interest in promoting junk rig.  Both you and Robin Blain have made significant contributions both to the JRA and to the development of junk rig design, and you have freely shared your knowledge with other members.  The fact that you also offer your services commercially to those who do not have the means or desire to build their own rigs is perfectly acceptable.  You have to make a living!  And for those who need assistance, your services are invaluable.  Thank you for your contributions to the JRA, and I hope you are not discouraged by misguided attitudes from continuing to do so.  I can assure you that this unfortunate attitude is not that of most members.

Graham, thanks for your well-considered words.

Although I very often share view with my friend Slieve, I feel little reason for blaming the JR pros in England. In this case, I just happen to think that match racing on identical hulls is a better way to find the best speed performance of rigs.

When I started telling about my new rigs and findings in the early nineties (‘cutting and trying’), Robin Blain made me feel very welcome in JRA, and I never felt that he or others of the pros were ‘stealing’ my stuff. Quite the contrary; I would have liked them to do that as I felt that the JR development was slow in Britain. Being strictly an amateur, I regard all I write to JRA about my rigs to be free and public stuff, which anyone can discard or make use of (small elements of it or the whole package), either as amateurs or commercially. Be my guest.

Btw, off the record; when I looked up that Item 10d from the AGM, I also spotted the next item, 10E:

e) Linda Crew-Gee asked if the JRA could approach Arne Kverneland with a view of assisting him financially or otherwise to complete his book on the Cambered Panel Junk Rig.  Annie Hill said that this had already been done and that Arne is happy with the incomplete book on the JRA website along with his other resources so that he can continually update the material as developments occur.  All members at the meeting agreed that a huge vote of thanks should be paid to Arne for all the help he provides to members.

Annie is right. I hope to add a bit here and there, and even write up a Chapter 7 one day. Don’t worry about me, folks. I feel I have received bags of cred for my write-ups during all these years.

Arne

(... all criticism should be constructive  -  so I suggest...)

I decided to go back to Alan Boswell’s initial posting here. He refers to Minutes of the AGM 2017, Item 10d.

Only now did I look it up. It says:

“ Pete Hill would like the Committee to set up a technical sub-committee to investigate the performance of all the various rigs that are being developed.  The Chairmen asked if Pete would volunteer to head the group and he replied that he would be happy to do so.  He said it might be necessary to have models or a small boat fleet of identical boats to test the rigs under all conditions.  Pete thought that there would be a high degree of interest in the study results.!

Pete’s idea clearly goes along the match-racing line. There is no mentioning of fitting an instrument package. I am more with Pete in his way of thinking, here.

Challenge number one is to find the right test boat, big enough to carry a real sail, big enough to be easily-handled by people over 60years or over 90kg. (Laser and Topper is too small). My dinghy Broremann had a sail area of 10sqm. This sail handled like any junk sail. I therefore suggest that 10sqm should be the standard area (profile sail area, not counting any slots or splits). I have found a boat type which I think would suit the task: The PD Goose. This is a stretched version of the 8 x 4’ Puddle Duck Racer, PDR, being 12 x 4’. There are some good clips of it on YouTube. These boats would be quite quick and easy to build, and even ‘mass-produce’ in 2-4 numbers.

The other challenge is to find a little dedicated group of people who would build, keep and maintain 2-4 such boats and do the testing (before taking over the boats). It seems to me that the NZ junkies are the most likely to take such a challenge, but anyone could do it anywhere. I might be able to produce a Johanna-style sail of 10sqm for one of the test boats.

Arne

PS: A goose site worth checking.