Annie Hill wrote:

Paul Thompson wrote:hanks for that Bob, I'll certainly be trying it with LC. When you say "reefed down" do you mean you still have some foresail up? Or are you using just the bundle. Annie, is that how you did it as well?

What we usually did was to drop 3 panels of the foresail and sheet it in hard.  It helped, I believe, with directional stability and almost certainly was a roll damper.  I used to lie prone on the lee bunk with my cup of tea on the floor next to me, while I read my book, and I never once remember the tea spilling.  Obviously as the wind increased the sail would be reefed more and more until there was just the bundle.

OK, I have read all this stuff about going downwind in strong winds.  I am totally convinvced that Junks, like all boats, are different.  My Benford 37 is totally different to a Benford 34 (Badger).  The main is two thirds bigger than the foresail, the main (450 square feet) is a bear to hoist and in 20 knots the boat sails at 80 per cent of its hull speed under foresail alone (4.5 knots).  Even a heavily reefed main disturbs the balance and self steering (wind vane) is not good.  Then little foresail (250 square feet) does good work day after day and can be gybed at any time in almost any wind strength.  Which the 450 square foot main cannot, even (especially?) when reefed - without a kicking strap it can 'sky' and break battens. 

It is boats for boats....  Learn your boat and do not listen to people who have not sailed your boat.  But then perhaps an expert can discover something you have not?

My motto is "Keep trying" and see what happens.

Anthony

sv Wild Fox, Dominican Republic

Robert Groves wrote:

Paul Thompson wrote:

Annie Hill wrote:

Paul Thompson wrote: since the foresail is also the sail that you'd mostly be using in heavy weather (running) the extra strength would not come amiss.

Not necessarily, Paul.  We ran under mainsail on Badger.

Grasshopper,

Yes, I am aware of that but most boats (non junk) generally run under the jib and I tend to think of the foresail as similar to the jib when it comes to junk schooners. It'd be interesting to know what others have done.

I'll know what works for LC soon enough and I'm sure I'll have an interesting time learning her quirks and foibles under her new rig. I'll most certainly will be seeing if LC is also happy to run under the main.

On Easy Go we originally tried running in heavy weather with the foresail. The performance and bad handling are the stuff that nightmares are made of. We then tried running with the mainsail out at 90 degrees to the mast and the foresail reefed down and sheeted in tight. Best rig one could imagine for downwind work. Foresail steadied the boat and the drive is at the centre of effort minimizing the potential for an accidental gybe. We have experienced accidental gybes running directly downwind with windshifts. Going a few degrees off the wind has never experienced an accidental gybe. I feel that the junk rig schooner is the best rig I have used for downwind and heavy weather passage making when properly configured. The driving mainsail and steadying foresail configuration with a windvane steering allows us to go days without any adjustment to the sails saving our energy and making passages in excess of 30 days a reality.

                                                                 Stavanger, Tuesday

Gary

If the rounding, R, in my Chain Calculator file was the same as the camber, then there would be no need for a chain calculator. The vertical curve between two battens is not quite like a rectangle or trapeze. I took a look at your sail plan and had a quick check on the horizontal panels:

If we reckon that the chord is roughly the same as the batten length at 440cm, an 8% camber would be 35.2cm. The fudge factor of 1.2 gives the Chain camber of 42.2cm.

By using my chain calculator on that chain camber and with a batten distance of 105.6cm, I end up with a rounding R=17.7cm. Your suggested R=26cm will produce much more than 8% camber.

The chain calculator has confused a few people. I have tried to explain it the best I can. All I can say is that the resulting camber uses to hit pretty close to what I hoped for when using the method.

Whether you use broad seams or not, will not alter the camber, I think. Still, I would cut the round as a continous curve even if broadseams (tucks) are to be used.

Arne

PS: I just took a photo of me demonstrating the chain calculator.

Stavanger, Tuesday

Gary, I don't understand what you mean with saying that my sails only have 4% camber. I have measured the the dept in Johanna's panels when under sail and it is 46cm. That is pretty close 8.0% of the chord.

What do you mean with tucks method?