Kurt Jon Ulmer wrote:Hello Folks,
I'm re-opening this discussion after reading the article in JRA#58 on Ti Gitu's experience with cambered panel sails, and before mehitabel and I meet several other junk-rigged boats on New Zealand's east coast, where we will quite likely embarrass ourselves sailing to windward...
I want to keep a little voice alive in the JRA, that recognises real merits in the flat sail version of the junk, and which would recommend a flat sail for a new rig, even in this suddenly modern era.
It's popular in these pages to say that no one way is better than another; they're just different ways. Horses for courses, etc... But I read an obvious bias in the JRA forums, towards new innovations and away from still very recent, but suddenly out-of-fashion innovations...
Why does the JRA classify the rigorous work of the 1960s as 'the early days' of a millenniums-old process of invention, and as no longer 'in current use?' (he looks up...) The Smart Car and the Hummer, cool as they are, can't obsolete family sedans and pickup trucks in a decade.
It isn't only cheapness and simplicity and the joy of not sailing to weather.
Ti Gitu's experience is relevant, and won't be less so even after Paul and Mo have worked out the wrinkles.
Cheers,
Kurt
Hello Kurt,
Yes, flat sails are still okay - for some people, some of the time - and by all means keep recommending them to those people.
But please don't confuse the flat sail/cambered sail issue with the planform on which it is used. On the "early days" page are planforms that nobody should consider nowadays. Jester was Blondie's first attempt, and is a poor rig, taken all round. So is the Newbridge HiPower rig. The Fenix rig is a very poor rig to put on a cruising boat, having taken the fanning principle to extremes. The Hasler McLeod rig appears on both pages, after earlier discussions. It is the only rig that can be said to have been rigorously worked on in the 1960s. The Reddish rig was an attempt to codify genuine Chinese rigs into something we could use, but didn't really succeed, in my view.
Arne Kverneland's planform is based on HM, with an improvement in the top sheeted panel shape which is worth adopting. Arne chooses to put in a lot of camber, but his planform can be used, with no camber or less camber than Arne uses, and it would still be the right sail - for someone other than Arne.
For myself, I have come to the view that there is a real problem in adding camber into high aspect ratio sails with a high-peaked yard, and that two masted rigs present a camber-adding problem that I am unable to solve to my entire satisfaction. With a lower peaked yard, as on Van Loan rigs, the problem is soluble - but I, personally, don't like the look of the solution.
One masted rigs are different. There, with lower aspect ratio, and a fanned planform that goes back millenia before the HM days in the 1960s, the problems of adding camber to the panels is soluble. Even so, a flat-cut, fanned sail is a better sail than a flat-cut HM sail ( the Chinese knew that, but Blondie didn't fully hoist it in, I don't think), and I would happily recommend anyone who wants to make a simple, one piece sail out of a polytarp to use Fantail's planform. It will camber, when the wind pipes up, if the spars are light enough. Only in light breezes will it hang flat.
Yes, flat sails are still okay, and please go on being the still small voice that recommends them to people who either don't need or don't want to sail fast to windward (not me - there is much joy to be had in sailing a fast, responsive, lively boat to windward. It gladdens my soul). But let your recommendation include advice on which planforms are to be avoided, having turned out to be not good.
Finally, if there is a bias in the JRA fora, it is because the people who are posting are interested in innovations. If people who were more interested in other aspects of junk rig sailing would speak up more, there would be no such bias. Let's hear from those who are entirely happy with their flat sails!
David.