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Help point a newbie in the right direction, please?

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  • 31 May 2012 22:16
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    Reply # 939284 on 936679
    Anonymous member
    I thought so, Daniel! You'll get as many different answers as there are members who reply to you, because we all see things from the perspective of the boats we own, the rigs we've made, and the kind of sailing that we do.
    For a picture of the kind of rig that I think would sit best on your boat, have a look at the photos of Badger in the Photogallery - basically a Hasler/McCleod schooner, her sails of nearly equal size, with four deep parallelogram panels, very moderately cambered, topped by three triangular panels, rather than two, to keep their individual sizes small.
    Last modified: 31 May 2012 22:16 | Anonymous member
  • 31 May 2012 17:58
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    Reply # 939073 on 939041
    Anonymous member
    Arne Kverneland wrote:Add a strong boltrope around the sail. Then, even if a panel should rip, the boltrope will keep the sail framework together. This will let you use the sail even if there is a walk-through hole in a panel.

    A third thing is that I would never recommend using wooden battens. I just got a feedback from a Swede who recently crossed the North Sea and had several battens broken in moderate wind, simply because the boat pitched and rolled in some old sea. Much better with thin-walled (1.5mm) aluminium battens of ample section.


    If you make the sails with vertical panels and batten pockets, you won't need a boltrope for the purposes Arne suggests - it will be divided into small sections by the seams.  We took Badger from North Carolina to the British Virgin Is many moons ago, with a whole panel blown out about half way up the luff of the mainsail.  But because of the vertical seams, it only affected a small part of the sail.  We didn't have a boltrope, just a hem, but that held fine :-)

    I have to disagree about wooden battens.  We sailed thousands of miles with them in Badger and plenty of other people have done so too.  They are also easy to replace or repair; but they do need to be made of good-quality wood.  Alloy is lighter, however.
  • 31 May 2012 17:21
    Quote
    Reply # 939041 on 936679
    Anonymous member (Administrator)

                                                                      Stavanger, Thursday

    Daniel

    Although I guess I could be said to be the cambered sail league, Kurt’s reasoning still makes some sense to me.

    Even so there are three points that I would recommend changing from PJR practice, even if you go for a flat sail.

    Add a strong boltrope around the sail. Then, even if a panel should rip, the boltrope will keep the sail framework together. This will let you use the sail even if there is a walk-through hole in a panel.

    The other thing is that PJR tends to recommend over-heavy (wooden) masts, at least on smaller boats where one tends to use a much higher SA/disp than 14.

    A third thing is that I would never recommend using wooden battens. I just got a feedback from a Swede who recently crossed the North Sea and had several battens broken in moderate wind, simply because the boat pitched and rolled in some old sea. Much better with thin-walled (1.5mm) aluminium battens of ample section.

    The transitional panel (panel no 3 from top) that I often use is made simply to adjust the size of the two top panels. I don’t want them to be bigger than the lower panels. This is to better keep control over the twist in the sail. As the aspect ratio grows well over 2.0, the need for a transitional panel will drop. Another method to shrink the top panels a bit is to shorten the yard and the top batten.

    Good luck,

    Arne
  • 31 May 2012 11:05
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    Reply # 938807 on 936679
    Anonymous member
    Hello Daniel,

    If offshore reliability is your primary concern in a rig, and you have Practical Junk Rig in your hands, it's my opinion that you have the state of the art. 

    Junk rig sailing is very old. The relatively recent but rigorous work of Hasler & McLeod hasn't been superseded. I don't think of mehitabel's rig as a software program that has to be updated to the latest version.

    Minor changes such as the transitional panel Arne uses, David suggests (and as you see in mehitabel's planform) and modernised details that make the parts of the rig no weaker or less serviceable than Hasler & McLeod's patterns, but might use better materials, won't damage your principal aim.

    My comments in the forum topics, "Flat Sails are Okay" and "Flat Sails are Still Okay" present my views more fully. And mehitabel herself presents the potential of this type of rig quite convincingly, in company with Badger, Ron Glas, Batwing, TristramE, EasyGo, Zebedee, Ti Gitu (with her earlier sails) - none of those confined to the Tradewinds - and many others.

    If you ask my advice, and you did ask all of us... Design your rig from Practical Junk Rig and put some of your own good sense into it too. Hasler and McLeod address so many small issues that can plague a poorly-worked-out innovation! 

    If you do that, you will have a rig soon, based on what's been proven at sea.

    Feel free to get in touch if I can help. I'm sure that goes for anyone else who sends advice your way.

    Best of luck.
    Cheers,
    Kurt
  • 30 May 2012 22:35
    Quote
    Reply # 937036 on 936679
    Anonymous member
    Daniel,
    The first choice you need to make is - one mast or two?
    With your 36ft boat, the usual choice would be for two masts, but it does mean that you have to buy, make, use, two of everything - masts, sails halyards etc. I have one mast on Tystie now, but I freely admit that this is pushing the limits of a one mast rig as far as they will go. The work to set up and use the sail can be heavy. 
    A one mast junk rig will work better to windward, mostly because of the lack of interference by one sail on the other, but also because a more effective sail shape is possible (fanned shapes). I have not been able to design a two mast junk rig that could could compete with a one mast rig, without going to too much complexity in the form of soft wingsails. Fanned sails, because they need a greater fore and aft space than Hasler sails, can only be used on one mast rigs and two mast rigs where the boat is very long in relation to its displacement, so that there is no need for big sails/ plenty of room for sheeting small sails. 
    So for a two mast rig, your best choice is of sails with parallelogram lower panels, perhaps with an intermediate, transitional quadrilateral panel (the way Arne does it), followed by one (Van Loan), two or three (Hasler) triangular panels. We all have our own ideas on how to add camber, and how much, and where, so we'll leave that aside for the moment, except to say that camber of some sort really ought to be added to a sail that is intended to sail well to weather.
    For a one mast rig, you can still use that form of sail, but you can add a "fantail" shape to the list of possibles, if you like the look of it. It works well, but it is still in its infancy, and we are still experimenting with ways to rig it to best effect. It is not yet proven for offshore reliability, but I am proposing to rectify that with a passage from NZ northwards this year.

    Battens and yards - I think we can agree that they should be made from tubular material, to get the best stiffness/strength/weight characteristics. The easiest to get hold of in most places is aluminium alloy, and you are looking for 6000 series that has been fully heat treated, and will be described as being to T6 temper. T8 temper, which means that it has been cold drawn, is stronger, but will fail catastrophically if overloaded, rather than just bending, as T6 does. T5, not fully hardened, is not a good choice.
    In some countries, pultruded GRP round tube is available, and is an alternative that can be compared to alloy, though it needs to be painted because it is abrasive. Flat GRP bar cannot be used, being too flexible, and square GRP tube tends to chafe the sail. 
  • 30 May 2012 16:11
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    Message # 936679
    Deleted user
    Reading through the forum I've been getting a bit confused on all the new and interesting modifications you all have been doing to the rigs since Hassler / McLeod's book.  With my principal concern being offshore reliability for singlehand sailing, is there a current "state of the art" rig that does not involve extreme experimentation that has had most of the kinks worked out and is appropriate for my intended use?  I'm trying to figure out the differences between a "fantail" rig, a Hassler rig (that's the parallelogram base with the one or two triangular fan panels, yes?), and when / how much camber or other modifications to make.  A cambered rig seems to be most appropriate as going to weather is a fairly significant portion of the sailing I will be doing (not doing a tradewinds route for the most part)...

    Some advice on where to start and how to begin deciphering all of this new, amazing, and interesting rig theory would be really appreciated!

    I'm also a bit confused on the subject of what to make the battens and yards out of.  Originally I thought I could just get some standard GRP batten material from a sailmaker, but it looks like that is not the case?  What is a good material without breaking the bank or requiring above average fiberglass skill?

    Many thanks as I try to sort and plan this rig out...
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