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What About the Junk Rig...?


sealegs

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........

Yup, it might have been state of art technology 5 odd thousand years ago but along with the knife and fork a modern bermudan rig sure takes some beating.

 

LoL as much as you like, and you are no doubt correct, but you would be wrong to imagine that the junk rig is inefficient*, or junk rigged boats slow.

 

Sailing around Hong Kong in the 1970s, I was constantly surprised by the speed (even in light airs) of cargo and fishing junks and similarly, in a full gale in the Hainan Strait, surprised at the sea kindliness of the numerous Hainanese fishing Junks we encountered. The hull design of these 50 +/- footers is as old as the rigs.

 

* in fact, the junk rig has been the rig of choice for numerous successful single handers - The famous Blondie Hasler being a case in point.

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Hi Bbay, You are quite right...particulaly with todays high strength materials. I guess I was being "old school" ....

It was the loading of the fore sail right at the top of the mast that made it hard for a bemudan rig on an unstayed mast. Some kind of running backstays would overcome that.

The Junk rig vessel that I mentioned is a "badger" type.

http://www.benford.us/dories/

 

This is one of Amyr Klinks vessels. A very interesting Brazilian guy who sailed to the antartic and then straight to the arctic in a beautiful boat called "Parratti"

(The book is called pole to pole).

This pic is of his second adventure vessel "Parratti 2"

With an unstayed rotating style of bermudan rig.....

 

800px-Paratii_2.jpg

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..but I can't get my head around the issue of chafe (a fully battened sail rubbing against a mast). I know the proponents say it isn't an issue - I guess I'll need to see it to believe it.

 

The chafe conundrum was resolved for me when someone pointed out that the junks plying their trade between (say) Hong Kong and Macau (or other ports south) all had their sails and battens on the starboard side of the mast.

 

They took advantage of the brisk NE monsoon winds to take them south and then avoided a windward beat home by waiting for the evening continental offshore breeze. Hence wind always on the port side and no chafe.

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Here's a link to the Junk Rig Association's website.....http://www.junkrigassociation.org/ They have heaps of technical info on various Junk Rigs.

So Paratti 2's mast and booms rotate becoming square on on a run? Must have cost a fortune in engineering! I wonder why he did not use the very large roach sails which I thought the main reason for going this way.

Here's a 25 footer with a rotating mast....http://www.sponbergyachtdesign.com/DelftPlan.htm

And the Paradox 1050 is very interesting......http://www.vgyd.com/Paradox1050.html

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