Junk rigged schooner , Pros , Cons?

[Orion Jim]

I remember drooling over the North Atlantic 29 as a teenager. I fell in love with the profile of that full keel as much as the junk rig and the freedom it would provide to a kid that couldn't wait to take off. I now have a cutter with a beautiful full keel profile but the junk rig just never found its way into my life. Then again I'm not dead yet

[RaymondR]

I pursue a single handed cruising lifestyle which takes me from the temperate zone in the summer into the tropics in the winter.

The prevailing winds when I make the transitions tend to dictate a lot of downwind sailing and there are periods when I my not even raise the mainsail for a year or two.

One of the problems with the tropics are cyclones (hurricanes) and the need to find bolt holes, preferably a long way up a creek or river, and then rigging for them. Most of the suitable creeks and rivers tend to be fronted by shallow bars which one needs to pass over to enter them and many of the side creeks, which are out of the main stream, should flooding accompany the usual deluges these extreme events bring, and which are consequently most suitable for log free anchoring, dry out at low tide.

It appears that a fairly shoal draft, beamy boat, which could readily take the bottom, with a low aspect rig and shortish masts easily wing and winged for down wind sailing like many of the junk rigged boats I have seen would be very suitable for this lifestyle.

[darylat8750]

RE Jim's post 15

It's my understanding that the Chinese consider an unstayed junk a coastal boat and the off shore boats have standing rigging. One should be able to work something out to get the center of effort close enough to optimum to work ok. The loads on the rigging should be much less than the sloop rig was designed for.

If I remember correctly Colvin's Gazelle uses standing rigging.

[Normanby]

As I understand it the Chinese Junks that had standing rigging left it loose; it wasn't so much for holding up the mast, merely to prevent it whipping about.

[UNCIVILIZED]

As to their handling simplicity, my neighbor who had a Gazelle, was all of maybe, 5'1" & 100lbs soaking wet. Yet she handled the boat by herself for thousands of sea miles, & many years. All of it with only one, ancient, single speed winch.

And yes, Gazelles do have a small bit of rigging. There are 2 stays per mast, per side. Led from the masthead out to the gunwales. Simple affairs of perhaps 5/16" wire, over thimbles, & nico-pressed to length. With turnbuckles pretty much only to take out the slack. AKA no appreciable tension as compared to a Bermudan rigged boat.
Ah, & a headstay as well.

Jay Benford's designs which employ junk rigs do not have anything in the way of standing rigging. He's the gent who designed Pete & Annie Hill's boat, in the book noted below. Although it was Pete who did the bulk of the work figuring out how to put said rig into Jay's design. But once he did, the idea caught on BIG, & now the rigs are offered as options in Benford's plans for many of his boats.

As to the off the wind speed issue, I doubt you'll see many junks doing double digits, or surfing for extended stretches downwind. So Transpac's out for them ;-)
Wharram spent quite a bit of time & thought trying to adapt them for his catamarans, but could never get the two concepts to fit together. The aerodynamics of the rig just aren't suited for high speeds.

If memory serves, there's a good bit of information on junks (& many, many other interesting things) at the Amateur Yacht Research Society (A.Y.R.S) ayrs.org
As well as in Annie Hill's book, which I mentioned above http://www.amazon.com/Voyaging-Small...a+small+income I highly recommend it for any sailor, whether you couldn't care less about junk rigs at all.

[UNCIVILIZED]

Just had one of those flashes of insight. Steering wise, there's a catch with Gazelles. In that it's hydraulic, so rudder feel is a thing of the past on them, more or less. At least that was how my friend's was setup. And with the rudder being somewhere underneath of the floor of the aft cabin, & the helm station 5' vertically, & 7' horizontally displaced from it, it'd be a bit of a trick to fit those boats with something made by Edson.

[darylat8750]

Originally Posted by Normanby

As I understand it the Chinese Junks that had standing rigging left it loose; it wasn't so much for holding up the mast, merely to prevent it whipping about.

My understanding also. Virtually no pretention.

[Capt Rottnest]

Originally Posted by skipmac

..
Same here. I wonder why they limited the downwind sail plan on the Bermuda rigged boat?

My impression is a spinnaker is better than poling out a jib, so I don't see how anything is lost. What is interesting is reading the comments from the JRA site about the PBO article. The journalist failed to mention the enormous trouble the the bermudan skipper had trying to fly his kite. It was a scrambled mess while the junk on the other hand could be sailed by 10 year old. The junk sailor himself admitting he is an "old fart" and has no around the cans experience, while the other guy is not just a seasoned racer, he is the cream of the fleet with a highly souped up boat. The journo admitted other splinters couldn't keep with this guy. The junk was setup, they brought in a ringer!

We've sailed our junk with modern cambered sails 3,000 miles, to get an upwind comparison with other boats is problematic because bermudan boats all motor to windward, makes you wonder.. The few times we have with similar WL boats it was neck and neck for hours.

[Jim Cate]

We've sailed our junk with modern cambered sails 3,000 miles, to get an upwind comparison with other boats is problematic because bermudan boats all motor to windward, makes you wonder.. The few times we have with similar WL boats it was neck and neck for hours.

Hey Cap, why don't you sail the next couple of thousand miles down here to TAsmania? I would turn off my engine and sail to windward with you... and be interested in seeing what happened. If your junk rig did indeed sail better to windward, or even as well, I'd be a candidate for conversion. We could even have a little friendly wager on the outcome...

Seriously, I would be very interested in such a comparison.

Jim

[Capt Rottnest]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

Hey Cap, why don't you sail the next couple of thousand miles down here to TAsmania? I would turn off my engine and sail to windward with you... and be interested in seeing what happened. If your junk rig did indeed sail better to windward, or even as well, I'd be a candidate for conversion. We could even have a little friendly wager on the outcome...

Seriously, I would be very interested in such a comparison.

Jim

I can tell you the result now, 45 and 47' boats are faster than us. Ours has a 29' WL so it wouldn't a fair comparison.

[TopHat]

For most cruising sailors..ie sailing downwind, I think the junk rig is an ideal rig, quick, easy reefing (which is often needed on many trips) is so easy, the ability to reef & maintain your course is an enormous saving in time (by not having to turn, pointy end to the wind), & a lot safer obviously also.
My rig is a modified junk, sometimes called a "junkette" rig, where the front of the sail is laced to the freestanding mast(similar to some gaff rigs), this enables a small jib to be flown in light winds on a forestay. I think the ability to fly a jib improves airflow over the mainsail & improves windward performance. I wonder if a standard junk rig could easily be converted to a junkette rig???

Here is a video of my junkette rig, going to wind reasonably well imho, with some other yachts of identical design(but with Bermudan rigs) alongside motor-sailing or motoring alone. none of us in the video are experienced sailors

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLGqMs1_CXw

cheers

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by Capt Rottnest

I can tell you the result now, 45 and 47' boats are faster than us. Ours has a 29' WL so it wouldn't a fair comparison.

OK, that's a reasonable assesment! I didn't know what size your boat was... but I would be interested in some comparative sailing with boats and sailors that I know. So often these statements that someone "always goes better to windward and I know it because I ran away from so and so"... are not, in fact, contests where both parties know they are racing and are not towing dinghies and don't have a bunch of growth on the keel... etc.

My own observations are that the few junk rigged boats that I have seen were not going all that well... but I do not take that to mean much, for I've seen plenty of Marconi rigs that were not going all that well either!

I would be tickled if all the "junker fans" were right and they really did sail wonderfully well. At my age, the ease of operation would be welcome... I'm just not ready to give up performance yet!

Cheers,

Jim

[Capt Rottnest]

There are plenty of Pros and just to please the critics here are the Cons

1. Lack of off the shelf sails for junk rig. Only a handful of sailmakers in the world know how to make them, most rigs are owner built.

2. The one hazard with these rig is the threat of “fan up” during a careless gybe. It's when all the battens are lifted vertically and wrapped around the mast. Kind of desperate but can be avoided with right gybing technique, this has never happened to us.

3. Sometimes sheeting catches onto protruding bits of batten, causing crew to go on deck. Can be eliminated with better batten design.

4. Sails are much heavier to raise, compared to bermudan, could be an advantage as it is excersize. But there's on friction.

Some talk here of problems converting boats, nonsense, any boat can be converted and free standing masts are not a major problem.

[Capt Rottnest]

I left one off, probably because this one is of little importance to junkees:

5. Non adjustable draft. Once designed in at sailmaking stage, you're stuck with it. Generally for offshore & cruising, less draft is recommended, like 6 to 8%. For performance, 10% or even more is recommended. (The boat in the PBO review had a low draft rig designed for the English Channel, not the best for light winds in protected waters, the bermudan with draft fine tuning had the advantage here.)

[TopHat]

Capt Rottnest,
I have suffered from "fan ups" due to my inexperience with the rig. but managed to sail many miles until into the relative protection of calm water to fix the situation.

Do you think a light line tied to the aft of say the third top batten, then led down pass the back end of each batten, through a block at the end of the boom, then along the bottom of the boom to the mast, down onto the cabin top & back to a cleat at the cockpit would solve this problem, the line could be made fast once reefing or raising sail is done?

cheers