Donald,

A HT would work well with a junk rig, as should most cats.  I have considered one, and could still do so, though they are a bit slow for my ideal. There are plenty around, so lots of bargains, especially if you are going to convert.  The beam is actually better than most of that era.

A split / aero type could sit where the existing mast is.  The only problem is that is also the location of the main hatch.  So probably best to move it forward to the back of the dinette, it would need some beefing up at the mast base, but they are heavily built, so no too difficult.  

Hope you go ahead, the HT is a very safe cruising boat, more so with a JR.

Anonymous wrote:

Gang, I know that the general wisdom is that catamarans are not good candidates for single-masted junk rigs because of the stresses on the bridge deck from the unstayed rig.  Of course, Pete Hill solved this issue on Oryx by having a twin-masted rig with each mast mounted in a hull.

I'm wondering if the central-single mast might work with the Heavenly Twins catamaran.  Apart from its modest size, not requiring a very large mast and sail, it seems that the bridge deck structure is more robust than is typical on cats, and its beam is relatively narrow for a cat (13'5").  What do you think?

Thanks in advance,

Don

 https://sailboatdata.com/sailboat/heavenly-twins

This topic strikes right at home with me at present as I am nearing the end of construction of a very light weight 6 m bridge deck sailing catamaran. Having owned a junk rig yacht in the past, and having been converted to the many benefits of the rig, it had been my hope to put some type of junk rig on my little catamaran. I actually came up with several junk based sail plans which would have worked in terms of CE and CLR, but unfortunately due to the very light displacement of the boat I am building, the weight of the spars required for a junk rig made such a rig impractical. But I am sure that on a heavier displacement catamaran such as the Heavenly Twins there is no reason why either a single masted, or bi-plane junk rig should not be workable. In fact I think that a Heavenly Twins catamaran has in the past been fitted with an Aero-rig, which uses a free standing mast. So provided you can get a good balance of the CE of the rig, and CLR of the hulls there is no reason why a junk rig should not work.

BTW, I have designed a bit of a hybrid rig for my catamaran, not wanting to go down the usual bermudan rig route. I started out with a Wharram wingsail rig, but ended up with a short headed gaff mainsail with roach, and a non overlapping self tacking headsail. Not a junk rig, but I am sure it will be an interesting learning experience. There will be no 'high-tech' in the rig, lashings for everything, not even a sail track on the mast.