David, what aluminum would you use for the hybrid mast. I looked for light posts but the alloy needed was no longer used.Which I think is 6061 with T6 hardening. Can something else be used. Im comfortable with solid timber mast, made from pieces glues together. PJR said the difference in weight between solid and hollow wood wasnt that significant for a cruising boat.  But aluminum or hybrid is fine if its better.

It seems to me that David’s and my view on what makes a sloop JR good, are nearing each other, at least on a few points.

My last two rigs for James’ boat have a much higher AR and lower chord/wl. ratio than any of my former rigs. The chord/wl. is only 0.72, while on Ingeborg and Johanna these numbers are 0.80 and 0.84.  Downwind steering of James’ CD28 should therefore be quite easy, even without shifting the sail forward.

On the sail with 65 yard angle, the halyard/mast angle will be 16°  -  right in the middle of David's ’window’, and for the same reasons as his.

I regard the shifting of the tack of the sail forward as a possible plan B, but frankly, I doubt that it will be needed. Instead, putting in a reef will ease the helm without losing as much as 0.5kts.

No rigs like foolish handling. Sometimes they kick back, and the bigger they are, the harder they kick. With any new rig or boat, one should have quite a few shake-down sails to sort out handling and learn to stay out of trouble. Then and only then is one ready for deep sea voyaging.

One little warning to the beginners and wannabes in the JR business:
I and David may sometimes express ‘firm’ opinions on what is the best version of the JR. Lean back and relax; don’t let us scare you away. Almost anything goes. David has crossed big oceans with both super-high-AR and super-low-AR rigs, with yards being almost flat or next to vertical. That man can make any sort of rig work.

I have stayed in the more modest league, with sails well within the Hasler-McLeod tradition, and with 99% of my focus on coastal and inshore sailing.
Both David’s and my rigs have proven to be capable enough, inshore and offshore, so it is more about details and what your eyes prefer.

Good luck!

Arne

David wrote:

Arne, I suspect that your sail, when shifted forward, might snag the pulpit when the boom lifts during a bad gybe (how do I know?!). As you know, I'm now in favour of high AR, low yard angle sails that don't need shifting fore and aft. How about a 55˚ or 60˚ yard?

David,
I remember your story about that wild gybe plus fan-up with your fanned sail in Tystie. That can happen to any of the Hasler-McLeod sails as well. Even sails with lower yard angles are not bulletproof against such calamities, unless they have some sort of downhaul to keep them from fanning up (SJR).

I have therefore been using my Fan-Up Preventer for a few years now on my last two boats. Operating it is easy and the FUP has become second nature in use.

If you enlarge the resent photo of Ingeborg’s reefed sail, that white FUP line shows well. As can be seen, it is cleated on the port bulkhead and stored in a little bag there.

Arne

PS: A lower yard angle would result in a wider halyard angle unless the sail is shifted forward. In that case the mast would need to be shifted aft to retain the CE's position.

James wrote:

David wrote:

I rigged the 28ft Ivory Gull as a schooner, but that was mainly because I had two spare masts looking for a job to do. She would have had better windward performance with a single sail, I think, but she cruised successfully around Ireland and Scotland, and is still rigged that way. 

Schooner masts tend to be as tall as a single mast would be, as the AR is necessarily high to get enough area within a short LOA. It can be done, though.

Ahhhhh, I just assumed split the sail area, lose some height. That makes sense though. What did you use for your masts, material I mean. Did you enjoy the ability to really play with the balance of the two sails, did you find it was worth the loss of performance. I love the look and the idea of redundancy, but the look may be why I keep trying to find reasons for two masts.

This is now ancient history; but the foremast was one of the earliest hybrids, an aluminium tube with a timber topmast, and the mainmast was a hand made carbon fibre experiment. The hybrid is probably the easiest and most pragmatic way to get a mast these days.

Having owned and cruised high and low AR sloops, a ketch and a schooner, I come down in favour of a high AR sloop for all-round manageability, until the boat gets too big for the crew to manage a single sail. That's somewhere around the 30 -34ft mark. For your boat, I'd be going with a high AR single sail, so long as the accommodation is not too badly affected by the mast position. That's one area where the schooner, or occasionally a ketch or yawl, often has the advantage - one mast goes forward of the forecabin, with another mast in the wider spaces in the saloon.

Anonymous wrote:

I rigged the 28ft Ivory Gull as a schooner, but that was mainly because I had two spare masts looking for a job to do. She would have had better windward performance with a single sail, I think, but she cruised successfully around Ireland and Scotland, and is still rigged that way. 

Schooner masts tend to be as tall as a single mast would be, as the AR is necessarily high to get enough area within a short LOA. It can be done, though.