Kurt Jon Ulmer wrote: Does anyone have experience and wisdom to share, having used auxiliary sails on their junk-rigged boat? Of any kind, for any purpose...
We used a smallish 'drifter' on the foremast of our old cat schooner rig but haven't used any extra sails with the junk rig. What use have they been to anybody?
(I'd like just as much to be talked out of considering them, as have to make any.)
Regards,
Kurt
I'm a somewhat lazy sailor and one of the great attractions of the junk rig for me has been that the sails that are attached to the mast(s) are all the sail that you have. With the rig being so easy to control and reef, there really is little excuse for not putting enough sail area into the rig to begin with (heavy displacement boats excepted. There it can be a real challenge to get enough sail area).
So to me putting up auxiliary sail is just to much trouble and it really defeats one of the major attractions of the rig. La Chica used to be rigged as a gaff ketch with a bermuda mizzen. I had all the sails your heart could ever have desired and in light conditions I could set a top sail, mizzen staysail, a mule, two water sails and a 150% ghoster (and a cruising chute if the wind was from the right direction), setting around a 1000 SqFt in all. Not bad for a 32ft boat.
In practice, this was done a couple of times and then I seldom bothered as it was just to much work and you were sort of in a constant state of terror. Fearful lest a gust suddenly appear from nowhere an knock you flat.
However it did lead to one really memorable occasion when we won the only around buoys regatta that I have ever entered (and most likely ever will) and that was the 1997 Dog Days Regatta in Pamilico Sound, North Carolina, USA. There was essentaily no wind, so it was just a drifting match and all that sail manage to find what breeze could be found. We confounded everyone includeing our selves :-)
But all the above does lead me to a point and that is with a heavy boat you need all the power you can extract from the sail that you can fit onto the boat. Hence La Chica will be sporting a softwing of the same type that David Tyler has on Tystie. It's not going to turn La Chica into a sparkling performer. She's to heavy for that but I believe that we will get all of the performance that the hull is capable of delivering and hopefully we will be able deliver a few surprises.
That said, La Chica is essentially a 4.5 to 5 kt pasagemaker. Offshore we consistantly do runs of 100 to 120 miles over 24 hours. It does not really seam to matter what the conditions are.