Wednesday, July 13, 2016

Rigging details at this point.

Hoisting the sail with the various reefing points showed me a need for a more positive parrel to hold the yard to the mast near the hoist point.  The deeper the reef the more the yard wandered back.  I've been coming out of the dumbsheave, through a clock at the yard lash point the forward around the mast and tying it off at the fore end of the yard.  works great at full sail and not bad at the first reef.  next two reefs it's not cutting it.  Just go back and look at the photos showing the reefs.

I looked at all of the suggested options for the balanced lug, and wasn't thrilled with any of them.  Ring idea seemed like one more thing to juggle or fall overboard.  Parrel beads and snap hook with stopper knot wasn't really 100% removable from the yard and needs a fixed chock.

I went with a yard hauling parrel just like on a chinese junk.  I'm gonna be making a junk sail for the boat at some point anyway.  The bitter end just falls down along the mast and I cleat it off on top of the Halyard at the mast base.  The thing works great.



This is my yard lashing.  Just a ring on a multiple pass loop  extra knots on the side showing were just to use up slack and also help keep the ring centered over the narrow edge,


Next step is to tie off the halyard.  I use a Bowline.


Then I take the yard parrel and pass it through the center of the ring first and out forward and around the mast, returning on the yard side.  I tie it off to the ring with another bowline.



Next on the change list was the Goat style bleater I had.  It's nice to be able to adjust the fore/aft position with this, but having it cleated off on the back side of the boom from the slot was a pain in the ass.  I figured why not bring the cleat over to the mast side and pass around the mast to keep it from getting squeezed/chafed.  Has the side benefit of holding it tighter to the mast than a standard bleater setup.


 Simple loop around the mast.  Can be raised or lowered.

 Here's a shot of the sail hoisted and the yard sucked up nicely with the new parrel.  Don't need a lot of tension on it.  When the sail is on the "Bad Tack" it's up against the mast and not hurting the shape at all.  I really wonder why more Lugs aren't rigged this way.

The side benefit of all this is even without the block, friction raising and lowering the sail is MUCH reduced.  Just shoots out of those new lazyjacks and right back into them.

  I've been asked about my downhaul.  Here it is.  I have a loop at one end that won't go through the eye of the downhaul cleat on the mast.  i pass the other end through the eye from stern to bow then pull the loop tight against the cleat.  End goes up and through the lashed on/moveable block,  then down and through the loop.  I put a trucker's hitch just below the block and come back up and through that, the down and cleat off.  Gives me a 3:1 and no problem getting tension.  Just need to make sure and get that trucker's hitch high enough to not run out of travel before you get enough tension.



And here's the yard hoisted after a fury quick and dirty job of tying in the last reef.  That hoist point was over a foot behind the mast with the old parrel setup.




I'm looking forward to getting out on Hagg lake this weekend with the Coots and running with all of this on the water.  The two previous trips to Rooster Rock in the gorge were way too exciting.  It's close to my house though.  Probably not my smartest decision ever to start the sail trials there, but on the flip side i showed up the rig's weaknesses pretty much Immediately.  Also pretty much proved my mast won't break under reasonably excessive strain.

She's getting there.

7 comments:

  1. Interesting! A simple loop parrel wouldn't work with my rig: with the sail lowered, the hoist point has to go well aft of the mast. (Combining the parrel and halyard in one is one way to solve this, but I think I like my ring better: ugly but effective. I'll be looking forward to more sailing reports.

    I've been waiting for years for someone to build this and compare it with other boats. It's been a real treat watching you do it.

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  2. Thanks. The whole reason for putting the blog up was the lack of information on the boat when I was considering it. I know how much I appreciate others doing the same for other designs, so this is my way of giving back. Chris Curtis over in Idaho is just itching to get on the same water as me with his paradox and compare the two head to head. Should be fun :-)

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  3. Hmmm. For some reason the edit doesn't work after posting.

    I just re-read your post about your hoist point needing to move back when you lower your sail. This parrel arrangement allows that no problem. The bitter end runs down to the halyard cleat, so it's released to get to the halyard uncleated. You hoist or lower the yard where ever you need it, then take up the tension on the parrel. You can have as much slack as you want at any yard height.

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  4. Way cool and detailed documentation and much appreciated. I also bought a set of RobbsBoat plans. It will be interesting to see what ballast does.... sure seems tender in the video test.

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    1. I went out a second time with the permanent ballast bolted in but no reef points. There was just flat too much wind to the point we ran out of rudder. When hoisting the sail my buddy on the tiller got us broadside to the wind while sitting on the sheet. We came close to getting the windows wet but never actually did. She is a little tender initially, but once you get over @ 10-15 degrees she stiffens up nicely as long as your butt is near the bottom of the boat like it should be with a birdwatcher cabin.

      Just to give you an idea of the sail area issue, the way I built it was 120ft2, a reduction from the design 138ft2 that even Jim thinks is too much. I pretty much cut the bottom 2ft off of the design sail making the first reef point full sail. The Paradox only has 100ft2. Hapscut has 113ft2 for the main sail. IMB has 113ft2. Normsboat has 113ft2. This is why after that second sail in 10knot + winds I stuck in three major reefs. The first one takes me down to @ 95ft2, and that's probably where I'll be most of the time except for very light winds.

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    2. My wife and I have lived aboard 2 different junk rigged sailboats and highly recommend the rig. Just a delight to reef. Some folks thought our sloop rigged one had too big a mainsail but it was nice to run one reef in most of the time and have the full she-bang for light wind days. Best of luck with the rig.


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    3. I've built a junk sail for my little 10' tri and loved it. I'm a firm believer in the Kvernland style cambered junk. No easier rig to sail with in squirrely wind.

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