Blue Moon's new cambered sail, beautifully built out of Weathermax 80 by Paul Thompson, is now rigged and almost ready for the first trial sail.  Lovely soft material, though perhaps a bit heavy for such a small sail, as Paul warned me, but I refused to be shipmates again with Odyssey 111.  It is unfortunately a little smaller at 23 sq m than the 26.5 sq m of the standard sloop, but was the biggest sail I could fit on this mast, especially since I like good deck clearance and plenty of halyard drift.  But why go fast when you can go slow and enjoy an extra cup of tea?

The sail has about 25% area fwd of the mast, hence the lower angled yard, in order to get the best balance possible.  This sail replaced a junkette rig, and the mast is about 300mm further aft than I would ideally like.  Compromises, compromises...  But I am delighted to have a proper junk rig again.  it makes me sleep better at night.

It will also be the first trial of the Windpilot Pacific Light servo-pendulum windvane.  Plus I have a hard bimini coming this week as well, built for me by JRA member, Greg Flemming, of Tea Gardens, NSW.  Then in April some time I will slip down into Moreton Bay for some proper sailing trials.  Blue Moon album photos here.