Arne Kverneland wrote:

Alan,
you know, this is not easy to arrange. It is next to impossible to arrange a line-up of three or five identical boats with all sorts of junk rigs, and then compare them in a series of races. Moreover, reporting instrument readings only are of little interest as the conditions vary so much.

Now I got an idea for a second-best, but hopefully realistic method:
............

Edward Hooper should have plenty of such statistic material available after having raced Amiina. I am sure there are other classes too, like the Hunter 19 Europa and Contessa 26, which are being raced each week. If one could join them, a really realistic comparison could be made.

"................

Arne

I wish i had worthwhile and usable statistics.  I am very sorry to disappoint you.  I have been such an irregular and un- enthusiastic 'round the buoy' racer for several reasons.  Mainly family pulls have meant i miss a lot of the races; then the very Bermuda biased handicap system keeps changing.

Now our clubs all go for VPRS, and boats using Spinnakers get a lower TCF than boats not using one.  So i could not take it seriously.  I do however enjoy the longer races, but they come up too rarely.  Even among the Van der Stadt Splinters, it turns out they are not all alike.  Amiina has a skeg, and normal rudder; Whisper and the other Poole Splinters don't have a skeg, and have a balanced spade rudder, so they tack much faster, but are not so directionally stable.

I have just put in the Racing forum a short report re a recent race to Yarmouth, for what it is worth.

You can also see some photos, and the results sheet on my photo album.

Alan

You are on strong ground at least financially in asking for such a project to be at least considered.   

At AGM 2014 the Committee put forward a paper on the financial management of the Association which was formally approved by the members.  The document is still available on the web site under JRA Documents. It included:

"Rather, we believe that the general reserves should be used towards significant projects in pursuit of our Aims and Objectives. We wish to encourage such projects. Some possible projects might include: 

• further digitisation of the books in our library; 

• production of supplements to Practical Junk Rig; 

• publication of a history of the development of the western junk rig; 

• production of videos of modern junk rigs in action; 

• further computerisation or digitisation of our proceedings; 

• j u n k r i g r e s e a r c h a n d development; 

• etc, etc. 

If we are successful in encouraging such projects, there could be significant expenditure and hence a reduction in our general reserves ie an excess of expenditure over income for the Association as a whole. We believe that this should not then be viewed as a “loss” but as a gain in terms of our useful activities."

And our Constitution 2012 states:

"The Aims and Objects of the JRA are: 

3.1 to promote and encourage discussion of junk rig (JR), including its traditional use, its design, and developments of it, and of the building and use of vessels with such rigs and their derivatives. 

3.2 to facilitate contact and communication between members of the Association."

Good luck and Fair Winds

Jonathan 

Alan,

one race is not enough, but after 5 – 10 races one may calculate average sailing times and even out results from good and bad races.

One may think that the human factor can be eliminated by filling the boats with instruments, showing and logging wind data and the boat’s speed and leeway as well. However, it would be next to impossible to monitor the sheeting and twist of the sail. I have been out in my IF, Ingeborg, nine times the last month. These were short trips where I did my very best to sail well to windward, as well as on the other legs. I notice how only small changes in sheeting may add or rob almost half a knot, and that is on a quite forgiving vessel.

Therefore, I still think that racing against a group of the same boat type is the best way to assess one’s JR.

If one wants to spend some of the JRA funds on R&D, then I suggest this:
Look up yacht clubs where they hold regular club races with (not too big) one-design boats. Arrange with a few of them to let you rig a boat of the same design with your favourite JR, and then participate in the summer series of their races.

I could well vote for spending some of JRA’s money on subsidising the construction of a few junkrigs for this cause. The owners’ payback would be to complete the race series and make the results available.

I am sure Edward Hooper already has enough data to make a useful comparison between his Amiina and the other Splinters in the club.

Arne

Well hopefully we will soon see a bit of a match race between 'Footprints' and the newly re-rigged 'Shoestring'. Footprints and Shoestring are sister-ships, although each with a slightly different interpretation of the plans. Footprints has a lower aspect camber panel sail, and Shoestring the taller flat, McLeod/Hasler sail. So we may get some idea of the merits and capability of each type of sail.

It will be a match-race of epic proportions and I am sure will eclipse the Americas Cup racing in terms of excitement and spectator appeal!!  

As reported in JRA Magazine 74, Pete Hill suggested (Item 10d) that the Committee "set up a technical sub-committee to investigate the performance of all the various rigs that are being developed." He also volunteered to head up the sub-committee.

I strongly support this initiative and I would like to volunteer to assist on the sub-committee.

Here are a few initial thoughts to stimulate a bit of discussion on this topic.

1. We did this 20 odd years ago and sponsored Joddy Chapman to research the subject. There are various articles abut this in Magazines 30 to 39 (Summer 1995 - Mar 2002). I believe that as a result the JRA already owns a set of measuring equipment for this purpose. This may be of use to boats with limited instrumentation, although I suspect the equipment is now very dated.

2. Instrumentation has come on a long way since then with many boats now having their own instruments providing the key data such as true and apparent wind speed and direction, boat speed, boat heading (from autopilot), and GPS speed and direction. I believe that it is now possible to acquire data loggers and software that will allow this data to be collected automatically and converted into a sailing performance chart. I suggest the JRA should investigate and perhaps purchase such a system which could be moved from boat to boat.

3. Some pitfalls need to be avoided. Personal reports of the performance of a boat which are not supported by good data are inevitably subjective and not very reliable. Even when supported by data, the recorded performance will rarely represent the maximum performance of the rig and boat, so extensive testing is required to achieve and record the best performance over a range of wind strengths.

4. Comparative testing on identical boats can be useful, and we used this in the early stages of Sunbird's existence, as both Robin Blain & I had Lasers. However, on small boats the effect of the fitness and skill of the helmsman has a big effect on the performance of the boat, and so helmsmen need to swap rigs or boats fairly frequently to get meaningful results.

That will do for now. I shall be interested to see how things develop!