Hong Kong parrels  -  again...

Kevin, I looked up that video clip of Wave Rover with Jami’s sail on it. It looks good  -  only lacking a set of HK parrels to get rid of the last diagonal creases.
(..I wonder, what is it that makes everyone so skeptical to HK parrels?...)

I suggest you look up JRA Magazine 93, p.3 and read what Pete Hill tells about fitting them on Kokachin.

Just a thought.
Arne

Malena in 1994  -  HK parrels just visible (.."the invention of the Devil"...)

Was out over the weekend at my yacht club’s “Rockabill Rally”, about a 20 mile round trip to a local lighthouse and home in company.  We are all a bit worried here by the channel depths, for the mile and a quarter long channel we need to use to get out to sea.  There were two groundings in the past couple of weeks (though not local boats) and we’ve all been wondering about the placement of a new safe water mark, but when one of the boats checked its records, it seems it is in the same place as last year.  But it has been our rule of thumb that the depth in the channel is always about 2m less than the safe water mark, so if you passed the mark at 4 metres you’d have 2m of water at lowest point in the channel.  Now it seems that does not hold anymore and we will have to be a bit more cautious.  And when I went out for the rally (first boat out as 1m draft only) there was quite a swell and breakers near the channel mark.  With a flattish bottom, Wave Rover can slap a little if you try to use the outboard to push through the swell - a little throttle management just before the bigger crests took care of that.  So it feels like the sands have shifted more than usual over the past winter.

Anyway, I went out with a couple of adjustments in the rigging - Arne’s point that it’s no great harm to let the front foot of the sail a little forward prompted me to loose the parrel that holds the boom back and I sailed with the THP a bit looser, and I got no weather helm at all.  But a little creasing in the sails, so I have to find the balance there.  Winds were mostly force 3 or lighter (that swell was left over from the previous night and early morning).  It’s not a fast boat but I am definitely more weatherly and a touch quicker with the cambers panel.  And Arne’s reminder to attach telltails to the leech definitely helps.

https://youtu.be/HRvSWoojFp4?is=PBsMVD72pGrMr6V5

Anonymous wrote:

1 May seemed like a good day for a shake out sail on Wave Rover.  Previous owner Alan Mulholland had called it Wave Rover 2, because he had a previous boat of the same name.  But I decided that boat is somewhere in the Pacific, and I am not going to burden myself with the “2” for every call and form filling I have to do for years to come, so it’s simply “Wave Rover” from now on.  Made official by a nice new stick on vinyl name decal.

Whats new this year is a “new” sail.  Years ago I had bought Jami Jokinen’s self made sail from his Galion 22.  I intended it for my Newbridge Venturer but did not mount it on that in the end.  When Alan Mulholland was finishing off Wave Rover’s build, I offered it to him, but he was already far along on his sail planning.  I never imagined I would use it myself on Wave Rover.

Jami’s sail was almost exactly right in terms of batten length.  But the wooden battens from the original rig were too thick for the sleeves built into the ‘new’ sail so I had some aluminium tubes cut to size.  The new sail was also about 130cm too long, but since Jami had made each panel separate, I was able to take out a panel, which reduced the height by 1 metre, which was just about enough to allow the sail to fit the mast.   Jami had reported some windward helm and I got a bit of that, but not much more than in other boats.  The Wave Rover yard was a bit too short at the head of the sail, perhaps 20CM, but attaching a small wooden batten extension fixes that.  I lashed it on temporarily but will need something more permanent.

So now it’s six panels

Sheeting to Boom and four battens (3 and 2)

Standing line to hold boom back - was not needed with the previous sail, essential with this one.

Standard Yard parrel and Throat parrel from fore end of yard around mast, to a block on batten 1 and down to deck.  The throat parrel takes out most of the diagonal creases but without it, those creases are large.  I plan to sail as is for a short while and add rigging as seems appropriate- a way to adjust the sail balance to reduce windward helm, maybe HK parrels. A FUP, since I had a nice fan up on my first gybe with the new sail.

Anyway, one short outing does not tell all, and I will tryto get more data in future sessions. But the signs were definitely good, and the sail looks well

https://youtu.be/k3xNfgHavU4?si=-EV8nFL-t8lflt45

Oh my, 

how lovely and somewhat humbling to see my modest work in use in a totally different part of the world.

I hope you solve the rigging issues with Arne’s wisdom and have a combination that sails well.

Also, the extra panel will be a good spare in case something happens. Fair winds!

Good evening Kevin.
This must be more or less armchair speculations.

Fan-up
On my two last boats I have used a FUP as described here (The Mk1 version). I suggest attaching the blocks or thimbles at B and C with15-20cm long strops to minimise friction.

Dropping the sail trouble.
It appears to me to be a friction problem. I usually ease the sheet before lowering the sail. If it sticks (that happened on Johanna), a light tug on the THP may do the trick. If none of these measures work, I guess you will have to fit downhauls ( one or two), as described by Hasler and McLeod (..or a heavier batten, of course...).

Weather helm.
I see that the sail is set with quite little mast balance, even if the batten parrels are long enough to move the sail forward. I suggest that you move the sail forward until you almost get lee helm when close-hauled in light winds. You may need to shift the halyard a little further aft to keep the slingpoint from rubbing the mast. This move not only brings the CoE forward, but also more inboard when reaching and running.

THP and LHP
I would fit both these. There will be less need for LHP. The THP does most of the job of removing the diagonal creases while the HK-parrels do the rest. (..check this...)

Hope some of this makes sense.

Good luck,
Arne

In case the links above die, just go to this page and look up the pdf-files there.
The Junk Rig Association - Arne Kverneland