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| Bobtail |
But I suppose the real truth is I was getting bored of trundling around Portsmouth harbour and the solent with the gert great donkey drowning out my IPod and felt the urge to get back to the simple delights of pottering around with sails, pulling strings and the sheer facination and pleasure that sailing has always given me for well over 20 years.
My biggest concern has been how to keep things cheap and simple, to produce something that will enable me to sail single-handed, but now retired and suffering from a variety of rheumatic problems, I cannot leap around tacking and reefing as I used to, even if I wanted to!
My wife Artie and I have often reflected on how nice it would be to sail from the warmth and comfort of the wheel house and not to have to jump around (and spill the tea/beer/wine) every time we have to tack or tug on the ropes, and, on the subject of tacking: what is the attraction of beating to windward and racing around the bouys like a demented idiot ? soaking wet and cold? why do it? are we mad? why did God invent the engine if it was not to turn on when the wind and tides ain't right innit?"
To me it's got to be simple: Set it up, get on a nice quiet run put on the kettle and then relax...Yes/No?
The most essential thing for me is to be able to design and do most (if not all) of the work myself, within a very strict budget and avoid high tech (= expensive) solutions/kit...
So far, every time I looked at it, my dream project was scuppered by the reality checks: stays?, stresses?, cambered/complex sails?, self-furling kit? and so on and so forth simply racked up the complexity of the work needed and prohibative costs, it disheartened me, to say the very least!.....
Then, one eventful day, our chum (Artie's colleage John Potter) happened to mention that he had got hold of a junk rig 23' bilge keel yacht called "Hippo" and raved on regards the simplicity of the beastie in it's unstayed mast, handling and design...after I expressed my interest, he kindly lent me
THE DREADED BOOK ..."Practical Junk Rig" by HG Haslar and JK McLeod
It was written in 1988 explaining in unbelievable, technical detail, how to design, build and sail a junk rig.. I am not kidding: it has every nook and cranny fully explained, although it takes about 4-5 readings just to start to take in the detail. It is inspired and was, for me, fatal...
"Oh noooo" wails Artie, he's off on another project!...... Yes, the seed of the new project was now well and truly bedded and germinating !!
Step 1; After initial research, I have joined the Junk Rig Association and I have already had some great advice and help from Robin Blain.. so the saga begins!!!
My aim with this blog is to record the progress and the hopefully not too many pitfalls and maybe inspire others to go Junk Rig ...
Heretical as it may be and hopefully wrong, I have the impression that the high point of western-Junking (if that is the right expression?) has probably passed and the sailing fraternity have little alternative but simply swallow the bulk-standard Bermudan rigs churned out by the big main manufacturers or maybe the potential benefits of the simple junk-rig approach is not appreciated?....
I suppose the reality is'nt that simple, but I suspect that much of it will probably be about the 'economy of scales' and the modern CAD driven computor based sail design and automated production techniques (reduced costs to build?) that constraints the commercial market or is it simply a lack of demand or too few boat builders?
In my view, if this is the case, it is real a shame because there is a whole field of sailing technology and skills that are now closed to the sailing enthusiast.
So this leads me to my next aim... your comments!!!
I would really appreciate your support, thoughts and guidance... whilst I have no professional boat building or sail-making experience I am very much a hands on type and having restored a number of boats, I am fairly confident (or deluded?) that I can do most of this project myself ... weeeeel we shall see?!
From the initial planning, the boat conversion itself, the sail design/construction, rigging and fitting out seems to be well within my abilities ( well, OK, so far !!) But, tempting as it is, whilst I think will be able to define the unstayed mast requirements, making one in wood might just be a step to far.Well, to be honest, its maybe a very stupid thing for me to even consider doing myself and my instincts tell me that there would be too much top hamper regards the weight of a wooden mast on our beatie (but have faith my son?!!) I have pondered using tapered flag poles (I am still not convinced and they are expensive) so its probably either a 2nd hand or new alumiumum purpose made jobbi ... but as this is probably the most expensive item on the agenda I would welcome your thoughts and suggestions on this!!!
Cheers , Chris
Good start! :-)
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