First trial with Blue Moon's new junk sail

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  • 08 Jul 2020 00:02
    Reply # 9087127 on 9063396

    Mark, thanks for your contact details.  I have copied them so you can delete them now if you wish.  I will send you an email later today.

  • 06 Jul 2020 11:54
    Reply # 9082518 on 9063396

    Hi, Mark.  

    Might I suggest you delete your post with email and phone details from this public (open to all viewers, not just members) forum and contact instead via the Personal Message service available to members, which is more private.  

    Regards.  

    Last modified: 06 Jul 2020 11:54 | Anonymous member
  • 06 Jul 2020 06:30
    Reply # 9081808 on 9063396
    Deleted user

    Graham hi sorry the long delay replying but had Covid scare (tested negative) & then a rotten cold & bronchitis, this year is just one damn thing after another!  My email is: markelliotranken@yahoo.com.au & my phone is 0404265024. Love to see Blue Moon & may be in Queensland later this year if things pan out. Regards Mark PS: did u know of a Junk-rigged Nowalk Island Sharpie in I think Cains I seem to remember you saying its fast & handles well.

  • 04 Jul 2020 09:02
    Reply # 9076875 on 9063396

    By the way the sail looks great. Even though I have only sailed my boat with the flat sail a handfull of times I am planning a cambered sail not too far down the track. If our planned move to Bunbury ever happens I may be involved in some low level racing and would like the boat to perform as well as it can.

  • 04 Jul 2020 08:57
    Reply # 9076858 on 9063396

    I agree with your points about the Spacesailer although I loved that boat perhaps converting to the JR would be difficult. I also found sleeping in the V berth in a choppy anchorage a problem with the halyards rattling inside the mast. On the other hand my conversion of the Farr 5000 fitted neatly with the existing hatch and internal moulding and with luck  rather than meticulous planning she sails very well.

  • 02 Jul 2020 00:20
    Reply # 9072978 on 9071760
    Anonymous wrote:

    Hi Mark,

    I recently sold a Swarbrick Spacesailer 24 a similar size boat to the Top Hat and would really recommend them, great design, standing headroom if your not too tall. a walk through transom, centrally mounted outboard which is far superior to the offset mount and they sail really well. JOG champs in their day. Pity they dont have a quarter berth, my favourite place to sleep, but you cant have everything in a 24 footer. I reckon they would convert brilliantly.


    The Spacesailer 24 is a great boat, built by a reputable company.  The 27 is even better for living aboard.  The balsa-cored deck needs to be examined carefully, preferably with a water meter.  They were on my shortlist, though I wanted a windvane on the stern, which would make the outboard location an issue to resolve.  The Top Hat might have a nicer motion to windward, and has made a number of ocean voyages, but the Spacesailer would fly off the wind, whereas the Top Hat has a reputation as a roller.  A guy I know, Bill Hatfield, sailed a similar boat to a Spacecsailer, a Triton 24, another very cheap boat these days, around Cape Horn in the mid 1970s.  (He recently became the oldest person, at 81, to circumnavigate nonstop and solo, aboard a Northshore 38, another boat one might consider unsuitable for the Southern Ocean.)  One drawback to many of these small boats is that the only decent bunk is the double in the forepeak, which is ruined by putting a keel-stepped unstayed mast through the middle of it.  And changing the layout, if they have a glass moulded interior, is almost impossible. 
  • 01 Jul 2020 14:35
    Reply # 9071760 on 9063396

    Hi Mark,

    I recently sold a Swarbrick Spacesailer 24 a similar size boat to the Top Hat and would really recommend them, great design, standing headroom if your not too tall. a walk through transom, centrally mounted outboard which is far superior to the offset mount and they sail really well. JOG champs in their day. Pity they dont have a quarter berth, my favourite place to sleep, but you cant have everything in a 24 footer. I reckon they would convert brilliantly.

  • 29 Jun 2020 01:34
    Reply # 9066562 on 9065305
    Mark wrote:

    Graham hi I'm very interested that u have junk rigged a Top Hat as I've looked at this class of boat & always thought they would make a good sailing retirement cottage in my declining years now I'm 66 with a dicky knee.  and they are still a reasonable price in Australia too. So I'm interested in your conversion of Blue Moon Are u in NSW or Queensland? In the future I would like to catch up if possible as while I've read a lot about Junk rigged boats I've never sailed one or seen a conversion done. If this is possible I'll pass on my phone number if you want it. Regards Mark


    Hi Mark, I am currently in Mooloolaba and hope to sail down into Moreton Bay in a few weeks for a winter cruise.  Usually I am somewhere in the tropics by this time of year as I don't like the cold.  I last left Sydney in March 2016 and doubt I will sail south of the Qld border again.  I'm not sure if I will get back to FNQ again either, but if I do go it won't be until 2021 at least.  If you send me an email I'd be happy to exchange phone numbers with you or emails.  The Top Hat sails sweetly though it is small and cramped below and versions like mine with a moulded interior are not brilliant ergonomically, in my opinion.  I bought Blue Moon because it already had an unstayed mast.  But as you say they are cheap (most people want more accommodation) and they do have the potential for ocean sailing.  I now wish I had bought a slightly bigger boat with an inboard diesel, greater displacement and wider beam aft.  Then converted it, since I have basically rebuilt Blue Moon's rig anyway.  Most of all I wish I had kept my last boat, Arion, and just kept chasing rust.  But here I am, so I will have to make the best of it.  Ultimately, I'd say the Top Hat is not a bad compromise between affordability and sailing ability.  PS: I enjoyed looking at your artwork on your website.
  • 28 Jun 2020 22:12
    Reply # 9066292 on 9063396

    Bonsoir

    Please keep the OSTAR in the 1960 context.

    As a Jester Challenger and the first to arrive in Newport, as the Jester Challenge, in my opinion, is the best heritage of the initial OSTAR, the notion of performance and competition is completely non relevant.

    The main issue was to finish the OSTAR. Hopefully almost all of the initial 1960 edition participants  arrived in New York but it iwas not at all abvious on the starting line.

    For example, in the first Jester Challenge (2006), we were 10 on the starting line. I arrived early July (following the northen route), Pete Hill arrived a fortnight  later (following the southern route) and John Apps arrived about 400 days latter as he had to turn-tail and retried a year latter.
    In the OSTAR, the main issue was to arrive on the other side of the pond !
    Chichester was fighting a cancer on a huge boat for the available equipment at time.
    Blondie Hasler built a boat that would bring him safe to destination while following the Northern route (a depression a day for a month). He succeed on his attempt !

    It was aventurous anouth not to speek of competition.

    Eric

  • 28 Jun 2020 12:43
    Reply # 9065378 on 9063396
    Graham wrote:

    PS:  I meant to say that Blue Moon has a performance-oriented hull, based on the English ocean racers of the 1950s.  Designed by John Illingworth, and probably with hull lines influenced by Angus Primrose, the Top Hat 25 was created for the Junior Offshore Group racing fleet in the early 1960s.  I knew it would respond well to a high performance sail.  The boat's performance potential and sail area is similar to Jester's, which leads me back to a thought I have often had.  If Jester had had a larger, cambered sail in 1960, it may well have won the inaugural OSTAR.  As it was, Blondie came in only 8 days after Chichester, who was sailling the 12m bermudian-rigged Gypsy Moth 111.  If Blue Moon had a 30 sq m cambered junk sail, it would be a rocketship!

    This is a "what if" thought that I've often had, too. Jester, being a first tentative step by Blondie in adapting an eastern rig to a western hull, had a sail that was far from optimum, as we who come after can recognise with the benefit of 60 further years of development. "What if" Jester had a high AR cambered rig? How many days to cross the Atlantic?
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