Battens fitted.....check
Ropes .....
At the planning stage I drew up a "Rigging Warrent"... a simple spread-sheet ... to work out how much rope, blocks, thimbles, cleats etc.etc. I would need.... again the good old Practical Junkrig shines with examples and advice on rope sizes .... I supplemented this with some other improvements I picked up from the Junk Rig Association publications.... and trotted off to the goods old boat jumble and about 200mrs of string and other bits of hardware... it was go,go,go time...
After much fiddling about it was ready to hoist:
The big hoist...
Please ignore the tea stains down the side ... clomping around decks and cups of tea do'nt go together mate!!!
At this point there are just the "lifting" lines: halliards, lazy jacks and boom hoist.. I will go into the control lines later.....Meanwhile, back to the sewing machine, I was very impressed with the idea of a combined sail catcher come lazy jacks come boom cover... so I bought 4mr acrylic canvas (1.5mr wide), 2 x 2mr zips, 3mr of 2" velcro and after only 2 days slaving away (I had thought it would take a couple of hours?!) ... total cost? about £80 ... it looks like this:
There are two pieces, one which is a square shape, the sail-catcher, that is permanently attached to the boom, the top of the catcher has zips inside and is reinforced with two wooden battens (1 1/2" x 1/2" coated with GRP) these are slotted into batten pockets and then tied to the lazy jack lines (through eye-lets):
When it is fitted it looks like this (ignore the white PVC, this was my temporary cover to keep the sails dry during the showers every 5 minutes!) also the lazy jack lines are temporariliy lashed to the catcher's battens...
The 2nd piece, the boom cover, is zipped to the sail catcher when its "time to go home and drink beer and prattle on about sailing to your mates time" the shape is so...
When fitted together it looks like this...
After the two bits are zipped together the front piece hangs over the sail, everthing, lines included are tucked away nice n' tidy and the two bottom seams and ends are closed by velcro strips, the final thing looks thike this:
why is that then, moosh, says you ?
Because, matie, the boom on a junk-rig is is fully adjustable, says I, the whole sail can be slid sideways, when running down-wind it is centred over the boat......none of that awful, dangerous, pitching and rolling rubbish you get with the bermudan set up where the sail is on one side of the boat.... so, if you had a full length catcher it would rub against the mast ? Yes/No? simples!!!
Now you are getting the idea why the junk rig is an advanced form of sailing compared to the conventional sailing arrangements!!!!
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