Dear all,
I have recently joined the JRA.
I currently onw a junk rigged Varne 27, BARNY. Some of you might know her, she appears in Newletter Nr.50.
She has a rig designed and supplied by Sunbird Marine in 1997-8. I'm more or less familar with the junk rig (I owned another hunk rigged boat with a standard Hassler McLeod rig a few years ago), but there are 2 lines that seem to be unique to the Sunbird rig on Barny. If some one could clarify the role of these lines I would be most grateful.
Picture 1. There is a kind of a topping lift that runs from the middle of the yard (where the yard hauling parrel and halyard are attached to the yard) to the aft end of the second batten (from the top). This is a running line. I assume it has a role to counteract the downward pull of the sheets and help to support the weight of the sail. At the same time help control the twist in the upper part (top two panels) of the sail.
I played a bit with this line, but did not find much effect on the sail shape, so usually it just hangs loose. I might as well remove it...
Picture 2. There is also a boom vang (a running line). It is attached more aft on the boom than it would normally be on a bermudan rig. I assume its role is to help pulling the boom (and with it the sail) forward when running downwind to balance the rig. As I always sail the boat with the sail in furthest possible forward position (this gives good balance upwind and an awful unbalance downwind...) I only use this line to hold the boom in place on the boom gallows when the sail is lowered to cut down on chafe as the boat rolls. For this, the line is quite useful, so maybe it's worth keeping it. If someone has a better method to fix the boom then I would gladly remove the line since it is in the way when I store the dinghy under the boom.
I attach 2 pictures of the lines.
Thank you in advance.
Best regards, Denes