Just a silly question:
Have you Paul T (or Annie) ever slept in a v-bunk with a mast at the centreline in between them? I have, several times, in my Malena and then in Johanna. Both had nice and dry spruce masts, which felt nice and warm to the touch. Ingeborg’s mast, on the other hand, is of aluminium. This has been dressed with two layers of bubble plastic and then a layer of pvc fabric. On top of that there is a knitted coat of wool, buttoned on almost like a cardigan. This makes the mast feel almost like a teddy bear  -  very soft, warm and comfy.
None of these masts have ever robbed any sleep from me.

(..the photo below was mainly taken to show Ingeborg’s unplugged air de-humidifier, but you can spot the mast behind it...)

Cheers (..in Old Danish Bitter Dram...)
Arne

(Photo section 7-11)

Paul S:

Paul T., I am very curious to understand why your experience shows that up to 4° forward mast rake the sail settles better when running? What do you mean, "better"? Are you referring to light winds?

On Ilvy we are reefing dead running with the sail squared out and under pressure, without any problems. Is that possible with forward rake, too?

When running in light winds, forward rake in the mast let's gravity help keep the sail out. Forward rake also can help to put the CE where it's needed when the options for the mast partners is limited for any reason. Rake is just another tool in the designers toolbox, to be used when needed.

I've never had issues reefing any of my sails on any point of sail.... sometimes you need to wait for a bit of a roll to free things up but the sail always comes down. More or less sail balance or mast rake does not seem to influence things much. Although a decent amount of sail balance does seem to make the sail more docile when gybing and it does reduce the sheet loads.

If you want the sail to come down readily, don't use a five part halyard, they are high friction devices! I only use three part halyards. If you need more power, use a winch. The Secondhand market is flooded with cheap non self tailing winches. Most of them are cheaper than what a decent set of blocks will cost you for a five part halyard.

Lastly, forward rake really meses with the minds of pointy sailors.... that adds to the pleasure of junk ownership.

From Chris Morejohn’s own design criteria for his H28 :

“Great bunk = great sex = great sleeping. I believe that having a good bunk to sleep and live in is very important. It must have plenty of room with great ventilation to survive in the tropics. Having lots of headroom over it with a clear view of the stars at night means that you will want to be next to each other all the time but when designed properly then you can also have room to spread out so when one of you is going to stay up reading at night the other can roll over and get some space. All this means you will love to be aboard. Our Bunk on the HFM is the best place in the world to sleep.”

H28 Junk rigged yawl.

Reminds me of Reuel Parker’s Voyages of Fishers Hornpipe. Sex and drugs and rock n roll on the high seas, an antidote to all the seemingly celibate classic cruising books.

Hvalfisk, what an interesting creature, great name for an interesting boat!

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.

First after turning the hull I realized how nice it would be to get that mast out of the bunk, and started thinking. 
Sail balance by itself could not do it and a SJR was not on my wishlist. 
Then Paul came up with the raked mast design and that was it. We got the thumbs up from Chris Morejohn and took it from there.

As for your concerns Arne. We’ll have to see how it all comes together.
I guess I’ll have to take her up to Stavanger.   

btw. The boat is a Hogfish design. It’s not the name she’ll have. 
She’ll be “Hvalfisken”