Hi all,

I believe that the first part of this thread fits another couple of newbies quite well. What my incredibly patient and supportive wife and I have got ourselves into is a modified roberts steel 13.3 metre cat ketch. She was built with bilge keels and unstayed fibre masts (15.2 metre main from the deck and 13.8 mizzen from the top of the cockpit cover). After a few months of work to get her back into the water, and lots of playing with the 18 lines coming into the cockpit, we went for a sail. We now know that the hull is fast. We also experienced rig jams, friction with the wrap around sails, etc. To cut a long story of a "character forming" day short, we are going junk. No question about that. I am trying hard to apply the wisdom of Hasler and McLeod, but am having a few challenging moments with working my way through the book, having only read it twice. I do believe that we have good mast placement, with the main being about 1.2 mtres from the bow, and the mizzen almost centrally placed. There is no available drawn plans for the boat, as she is not a standard Roberts ketch. Kurt Ulmer's article in JR 61 seems to make a lot of sense to us. What we want is a cruising boat that can be single handed if required. I have emailed with Kurt and spoken with Graham Cox (thank you both for your assistance), and would welcome any thoughts or suggestions (apart from moving those masts).   

Well you certainly have a newbie on your hands.

Seriously though, you make a good point, much of what I find new and challenging, may in fact be common knowledge among folk with even a little nautical experience.

Too, progress will, saving some suggested inclusions from the membership, be as slow as my absorption of the vocabulary from this site and PJR. I am happy to chase up any contributions which may come forward and then hold up a description for review.

David,

Thank you.

I would be grateful for the opportunity and for the oversight.

Bruce W

Like Daniel (and no doubt others) I have been reading, in my case with slowly increasing understanding about development of the junk rig.

However I find myself frequently bumping into new, or given my lamentable memory, forgotten vocabulary bringing my reading to a sudden stop while I log out and proceed, with more or less success, to Google for a definition.

I feel that what I, for one, need, is a cheat sheet, or more formally, a glossary of terms which I can call up from within the site. Sadly, it will be, for this newbie's purposes, a  very basic document, for example:

Panels: Sections of the junk sail (see Junk sail definition) separated by battens (see Batten) and, by Association convention, enumerated from the  yard (see Yard) to the boom (see Boom). These may be sewn from multiple pieces of fabric and pocketed or grommeted for attachment of the batten.

Parrel: A length of line to secure a batten (see Batten) to the mast (see Mast) (see also Hong Kong Parrel)...and so on. (And, yes, I think  a newbie may appreciate definitions of the basics ---although perhaps not the cross-referencing convention I have abused)

I have Hasler & McLeod and am on my second read through, and while excellently indexed, this starts with an assumption of an (extensive?) sailing vocabulary and is not quite the aim here. I want a document which will allow any new member to dip randomly into the Technical Forum and have a resource which will enable then to comprehend the debate.

Does such a glossary exist?

If not, may I solicit some occasional feed back, correction, suggestions and extension as I extract the data. I am conscious that this may be perilously close to plagiarising the work of the membership but perhaps this may be forgiven as a literature survey, complete with attributions, the copyright of which vests in the Association.

If so, is there a site-based facility for a shared work which can be jointly edited, annotated and extended even when I, hopefully, no longer need its support?

Happy to take this one off-line with the Administrators if this is more appropriate.

Bruce W

                                                                    Stavanger, Thursday

Annie, I would put the matter of boltrope or not the other way around:

If one fits a boltrope, then there will be less need for making each panel with vertical panels :-) ! Besides, it seems to me that the stiffness and weight of the boltrope help to prevent fluttering of the sail’s luff or leech. I can see the point in running the cloth vertically when making a flat sail, but that would involve difficult sewing ( for instance of the batten pockets) and probably a sewing machine with a longer arm than my domestic Pfaff 360 has. When making the sail with cambered panels, vertical seams only slows down the project, although one will save on cloth.

As for wooden versus aluminium battens, remember that Badger’s battens are quite short. The load on a batten raises a lot with increasing length.

Cheers, Arne

PS, Sunday morning, 3. June  (..after having dreamt about flying 4-engined penguins..)

The boltrope I described above need not be made from a rope as such. It could well be made from webbing or really stout tabling. My point is that a sail that is prevented from starting to rip at the edge will not fall apart, even with big holes in it.