computer hiatus...

My  computer keyboard is no longer working so I'll be taking a (hopefully short) hiatus until I can source a new one.

So it goes...

a little heresy...

I've always liked the gaff rig because it's a stout spar that does not require a lot of tension to stand. There's a lot to be said for that.

While I don't think that Tom Colvin's junk rigs were fully evolved they did make a whole lot of sense.Take his Gazelle for instance.

Minimal stays with the ability to carry a jib makes all kinds of sense to me. The masts are lighter and less expensive than free-standing masts. Mast placement tends to be more normal in the sense that they are less radical where the interior is concerned which is no bad thing when dealing with a classic plastic boat. The fact that a jib is a great aid to balancing the sail plan and helps with windward ability is an added bonus. The Colvin rig makes a lot of sense.

Then again, it would make even more sense if it was brought into the current century.

Yep, I'm well aware that most junk rig aficionados tend to be foresail and standing rig phobic but a well designed junk or lug cutter would make all kinds of sense where a bombproof, powerful, and inexpensive rig is what you want.

With the current available tech it would be easy to build a light spar in plywood (see Reuel Parker's) and since textile rigging has become an available affordable alternative it's within the reach of anyone. Take a little extra effort and serve the rigging and you'll have a rig that will last into the next century.

Might be a bit of heretical thinking you should think about.
 

a couple of thoughts on spar building...

When considering changing to a rig like the balanced lug or junk, the first issue is that it requires moving the location of the mast. Finding the location is easy, but it can play hell with the interior. Free-standing masts, while not being as tall as the Bermuda rig, are larger in terms of diameter and a 10-inch diameter spar will create bloody havoc with the accommodation.

Which may be an excellent reason to keep your Bermuda rig if it’s still standing with decent rigging and sails. 

In the future, I’ll be doing an outline on how to locate the mast, build the mast, and otherwise get you through the new rig process for a more-or-less traditional junk or balanced lug rig. 

Here are a couple of things to mull over.

Is the new mast location going to work with the current interior arrangement? If not, peruse accommodations that would work with minimal fuss.

Do you have a place to build a mast?

The current mast on “So It Goes” should have taken me a week to build. The reality was it took a lot longer, and it was a nightmare to build. I was building in a parking lot with zero protection from the elements. I had to stop whenever it rained or seemed like it would rain, which was just about every day. The landlord of the property made the task worse. He really didn’t want me building there, which fostered a very negative workspace. My spar bench was “bumped” regularly in the parking lot, causing me to re-level the bench/molds before getting to the actual work.

I really should have found a better place to build, as it would have saved me both money, aggravation, and with a better built mast to boot.

Some required reading...

The popularity of the Bermuda rig has caused a general lack of knowledge on most other rigs and how to rig them. Luckily for us a few books are all you need to sort out that problem.

Phil Bolger's "103 Sailing Rigs" talks a lot about various rigs and their variations in a common sense manner and well worth reading. It certainly opened my eyes where rigs are concerned.

For me Derek Van Loan's "The Chinese Sailing Rig" is the best book (Booklet?) going for converting a Bermudan rigged sailboat into a Junk rig. It's simple, clear, and it's brevity make for an easy to follow "cookbook" that makes conversion dead simple. Detractors of the book will argue that it is dated and does not include current thinking in sail design and construction but that is easily found on the JRA website but the basic conversion info is exactly what you need for a successful conversion.

 

Hasler and McLeod's "Practical Junk Rig" is an excellent tome on the junk rig and there is a lot of needful information. That said, it's a hard read (for me at least) and you really have to dig for that needful content. That said, it is a book you want but for starters the Van Loan book is the way to go to get started. 

It's also expensive (the Kindle version is $47.49 which is akin to piracy) so you'll want to keep an eye out for a used copy.

John Leather's "Spritsails & Lugsails" really needs to be on any Lug Nut's bookshelf. Sadly, most folk these days look at Sprits and Lugs as some sort of dinghy sail only and miss the fact entirely that they are powerful rigs that would make a lot of sense for boats in the VolksCruiser size range.

"The Gaff Rig Handbook" by John Leather is the bible for devotees of the Gaff rig and well worth a space on your book shelf. The gaff rig has a lot going for it and, mostly, suffers from the fact that most Gaff rig folks are unwilling to bring an excellent rig into the current century.
 

More on the practical side "Hand, Reef, and Steer" by Tom Cunliffe is the one book I'd choose if I was limited to a single gaff rig boat. Cunliffe is always an enjoyable read and has walked the talk more than most.

"The Rigger's Apprentice" by the late Brion Toss is a book that changed my life in the way I look at boat systems. It contains everything you need to know about sailboat rigging and makes all the rigging jobs you might encounter doable.

All of these books went a long way to color my thinking of what sailing rigs should be. Sure, I have a few issues with a few bits of the various author's opinions but in whole they're mostly spot on and needful if you're thinking of adapting a Bermudan rig to junk, lug, or gaff.

a project you may want to follow...

A Cape Dory 27 gets the AtomVoyager treatment.

Like all of his refits I'll be taking notes...

some lug nut thoughts...

First of all If you have a boat with a working Bermuda rig keep in mind that it seldom makes sense to do a new rig (Lug, Junk,Crab Claw, or whatever). Remember the "Don't fix it if it's not broken" rule.

Now, if on the other hand, the CAL 29 you're thinking of getting has no sails, the rigging is shot, and your mast has seen better days a change to a simpler rig just might make a lot of sense.

With me so far?

OK, here's what you need to know about lug rigs...

For starters there are three main types of lug sails which are the Dipping lug, Standing lug, and the Balanced lug. While all three are excellent rigs I'm of the considered opinion that the Balanced lug makes the most sense for a cruising boat.

So, what do I like about this Bolger Balanced lug rig?

1. It's simple. All you need is a mast, sail, a halyard, a sheet, and a few blocks. The mast is free standing and requires no rigging or associated hardware.
2. Being a square sail the center of effort is lower than in a Bermuda rig which results in less heeling forces.
3. It's a powerful sail for not a lot of money.
4. The balanced lug rig is self-vanging which makes for docile handling.

What's not to like? 

Well for starters, if you want an affordable free standing mast and the associated boom/yard you'll have to build it yourself. That said, the cost of said mast and spars is a lot less than an aluminum stick and associated wire/hardware needed for the Bermuda rig. Better yet the learning curve for mast building is not so difficult and a rather enjoyable pursuit. Still it is a rather daunting project for a lot of folks.

The Balanced lug rig, while being fairly evolved, could certainly use a bit of improvement to bring it into the current century. Most of which is already in use readily available with a bit of thought and research.

Over the years my thinking about sailing across oceans with a cat rigged boat have evolved somewhat as has my thought process in terms of building free standing spars but we'll get into that in some depth next time.

a quick link...

 Something on consumerism that says it all and is well worth the read.

A few thoughts on VolksCruiserish rigs...

Just about all of the boats I cover on VolksCruiser have the same rig and it's a problematic affair.

For starters, I actually like the Bermuda rig as it's highly developed and if you're going to race it's pretty much the only one you can use. That said, if I were designing a cruising boat it would just about be the last rig I'd choose.

So, what's wrong with the Bermuda rig?

Let me count the ways...

1. For maximum performance the Bermuda rig requires a sail inventory that takes up more space than your average cruising boat has room for.
2. While highly developed, the rig is also highly monetized which makes it very expensive.
3. Any rig 100% dependent on rigging to stand up has lots of potential failure points any of which can result in a mast-loss clusterfuck.
4. Sailing a Bermuda rig is labor intensive. Which is OK when you're racing, not so much when you're crossing an ocean.
5. While the Bermuda rig is highly developed, it was a poor choice to development over more powerful and efficient rigs. If you have a chance you'll want to read any of C. A. Marchaj's books on the subject as they'll rock your world.

So, if the Bermuda rig has problems what's better? Well according to the wind tunnel testing by C. A. Marchaj just about every rig out there is better than the Bermuda rig. So take your pick.

In my case; I'm still partial to the various lugs and junk rigs. Then again, I'm not a purist "Old Gaffer" sort of fellow and see no issues in taking a lot of that Bermuda rig science and applying it towards making a lug rig perform better, less prone to failure, and easier to use.

But more on that subject next time...

Maybe the VolksCruiser you should be looking for...

OK, I'll admit that I've never been a fan of Catalina sailboats. Don't really know why but I've always preferred the design work of Lapworth and Tripp and nothing in the Catalina lineup grabbed my attention.

Hell, maybe it's just the "Catalina" smile issue...

That said, Catalina made a shitload of boats, they all floated right side up, and there are lots of them still around.

Take the Catalina 27 for instance...

Catalina built the 27 for twenty years (1971-1991) which is a very long life for any design. Sure, they made changes to the design over the course of those years but it was more about refinement than following fashion or trends. In those two decade they built 6662 boats which is an amazing achievement.

The fact that they built so many boats back then also means that there are a lot of Catalina 27s for sale in 2022. Many of which are quite affordable.

Yesterday I popped Catalina 27 into search tempest and in the PNW there were thirteen listings ranging from $500 to $10,500. Admittedly a couple of repeat ads but that's a lot of Catalina 27s!

It's not just the PNW as Southern Cal has about the same number for sale, and just about everywhere* has some C27s for sale.

Pretty much the same thing can be said for the Catalina 30 as there are lots and lot of them still around with many being as cheap as you can get for a 30 foot cruising boat. 

The thing about the C27 and C30 is that they're really both excellent designs and due to the number of them on the market are one of your best chances of getting a good boat in good shape for not a lot of money. Add to that the fact that there is a HUGE user base for the Catalinas so getting parts and affordable sails is non-problematic and there is tons of information regarding any issues the boats might have and how to fix them.

So, I'm still not a Catalina fan but I can do the math and they do make a lot of sense as a VolksCruiserish choice. You could certainly do a lot worse.

*A quick note on price, for some reason or other Florida seems to have higher prices for the C27 than anywhere else. As I've always considered Florida as just about the last place I'd care to buy a boat (Florida, after all, being the place where bad boats go to die slowly) it makes me curious.

Brass tacks...

Refitting an old boat on a budget, while possible, is no easy task. It's also a lot of work and in our current world real work is not something a lot of people are comfortable with.

It also takes a certain amount of brain power. While I won't throw stones in that direction there are a lot of people these days who are somewhat challenged in that area.

Which, dear reader, tells me that if you're reading this you're not only have the needful work ethic, basic math skills, and intelligence to fit out an old boat and go sailing.

The good news is that inflation and a shortage of boat slips is making a lot of excellent boats available. The downside is that you need to be able to find a place to put your boat while refitting and that might actually be the most expensive part of the project.

Maybe it's good time to point out that doing an unnecessary refit on a boat is the height of silliness. Any refit is going to be expensive and time consuming.

Sure, we all want to make a boat our own and sort out things the way you want them to be. That said, sailboats are mobile and, providing the boat is seaworthy, can be sailed to a place where a refit is both feasible  as well as affordable.

Some folks are lucky enough to have a big yard or access to a usable site but the current boatyard rents/charges or extortionate marina practices make sailing off to a more hospitable location a good idea.

Which is a roundabout way of saying finding an affordable mostly turnkey boat with minimal issues should be your current mantra. Bottom line it's a whole lot easier to fix up a boat in good shape than one that's landfill fodder.