Arne wrote:
Paul T. - OK, OK, I do understand that forward-raking masts work, although I struggle with seeing that they are better. The Chinese have been sailing their junks for centuries and they surely know (knew) how to fit forward-raking masts, since they did that on their foremasts. However, all the main driving sails appear to sit on plumb masts. Some mizzenmasts even have a little aft rake. I refuse to think that this is only a result of tradition and bull-headed ignorance.
Sooo, live and let live. I’ll stick to plumb masts, except on the foresails on schooners, but wish you good luck.
As for avoiding having a big pole right through one’s double bunk; yes, that is a good argument. Still, people are different. Paul S and his Toni have been cruising for months this summer in their little Ilvy. In spite of having the mast right through their bunk, their smiles appear to be wider and brighter than ever. How come?
I use some forward rake because experience has taught me that some forward rake helps to settle the sail when running and that, to my mind is a good thing. At angles up to 4° there are no disadvantages at all. At greater angles, things become more complicated and the trade offs depend on your design goals. I see zero point in aft rake in a junk rig.
You keep on mentioning traditional Chinese junks but neither you nor I are designing traditional junk rigs, nor are we using traditional junk hulls and materials. We are working with materials and hull forms that have little relation to what the Chinese had. They had large crews and (mostly) poor materials and that drove a lot of their decisions. They were also known for a singular lack of curiosity about things, once they got what they wanted from the product.
We in the west today have almost exactly the opposite environment. We have high quality materials and small crews and that should be driving our design process. For the Chinese it would have been no problem to have one or two crew on the foredeck to tame a misbehaving sail. Except if racing, most of us nowadays don't have crew to spare.
The whole ethos of the modern junk as used by us in the west, is ease of handling and keeping the crew off the foredeck and in the cockpit. For many of us, who are single handers, it's away of making solo sailing safe.
When Blondie came up with his variant of the junk rig, he took the things that worked towards meeting his design goals from the Chinese, namely a safe easily handled rig for short and single handed sailing. He met his goals brilliantly and his work is the foundation upon which I (and you) work. It's nott however set in stone, I base all my work on the foundation created by Blondie but I'm also a designer and my job is to come up with solutions for problems, not to slavishly reenact a given model.
The rig I have designed for Frederik, solves his problems, David Tyler used a similar approach with the rig he designed for Annie Hill's Raven 26 Fantail. That lady also did not fancy sleeping with a mast between her legs...
I can't really comment of the choices that Paul S and Toni have made as I don't know them nor would this be the place.