Jib Sheets and Snap Shackles

There is a much under-rated musician, Chris Rea, who made an album in the 1980’s called ‘God’s Great Banana Skin’. The title track implied that over-confidence can bring bad luck. I always liked the song and now I have special reason to re-play it and take note of the lyrics. ‘Why?’ you may ask. Well, a couple of weeks ago I announced that, having renovated this boat, I knew her intimately, better than someone who simply goes out and purchases one from a production line.  Her construction and her ways on the water held no mysteries or surprises, I said. A lot can happen in a couple of weeks.

Last week Susan and I decided we would take her for a sail on Wednesday afternoon. The September weather here is unusually pleasant and mid-week we have the estuary to ourselves. Wednesday duly arrived and although it was sunny the wind was not ideal, a gusty North Easter. At times it was calm, hardly enough breeze to give us steerage-way and then a force five would come charging across the water, laying us over and sending us off down-stream like a goods train. All these terms are relative of course, A Westerly Nomad doesn’t heal like a dinghy and five knots is her speed limit – but it is fair to say that, at times, without a reef in her sails, she was over-pressed and the trip wasn’t easy or comfortable.

Earlier in the year, when I raised the mast and launched her I should have set up the slab reefing system but in my eagerness to get afloat I hadn’t bothered and so now, in this wind, reefing wasn’t an option. I suppose I could have set up some kind of jury reef if I had gone into the cabin and selected a suitable piece of rope from the tangle I had carelessly bagged up and thrown in there, but leaving the helm wasn’t really an option because I didn’t have much sea room in amongst the cluster of moored boat where I happened to be at the time.

My solution was to tack, push out across the estuary into clear water where, hopefully, I could find the space and time to sort things out. No such luck, as the boat came round onto her new tack, the jib sheet jammed in the port spreader. How could this happen? Well, again in my haste to get this boat sailing I had connected the jib to the sheet using a large snap-shackle. They say that if something can go wrong it probably will and today was no exception. On this, our fourth trip, the first trip where the wind was strong and less than perfect, the snap-shackle had ‘snapped’ itself firmly onto the shroud and the jib was well and truly aback. The weight of wind was such that the shackle could not be unfastened without bringing the bow back into the wind. Fortunately, we drifted past the cluster of moored boats, got ourselves sorted and no harm was done – except maybe to pride.

Ah well, I guess I got some changes and adjustments to make, might play that Chris Rea song a few times more too.

Seaward

Sailing Boat Mainsheet Modifications

Following the launch and maiden voyage of Susan (of the Seas) my refurbished Westerly Nomad, I’d like to report on the several short shake-down passages I have made. I’d like to --- but in truth there haven’t been any. Why not? Well, I had the boat modified to carry an outboard in a well and there were unintended outcomes. The outboard performs well and pushes the boat along without problem but the mainsheet was attached to the transom and, because the boom doesn’t extend so far, the surplus rope hung directly over the outboard. 

When we launched the boat and motored up the estuary it became obvious that this was a safety hazard. I could easily imagine how under power, a loose mainsheet could snake its way down into the well and then tangle with the prop. At the time I merely thought that this was simply something to be aware of and cautious about. A few days later though, I invited a few guys to share a sun-downer beer on board as a way of showing off my new vessel; the evening was warm, the conversation excellent and the beer tasted good, along with the peanuts, crisps and slices of dried sausage.There wasn’t a great deal of room in the cockpit and so the sausage on a wooden platter was placed on top of the outboard casing. All was well until a passing boat set up a wash, rolled my boat slightly and plosh! Down went the sausage into the outboard well - to the delight of a large shoal of Mullet who thought that Christmas had come early. The conversation turned to outboard wells and their ability to act as magnates. The collective view that evening was that if anything is likely to fall on a boat with a well, that’s where it will fall.The rather large dried sausage also had an unfortunate effect on the harbourmaster here, she was convinced someone had evacuated their sea-toilet in the marina (bad etiquette)!

So, for my peace of mind, the mainsheet would have to be moved before further trips could be made. It turned out to be an easy job because the boom already had a fitting to take the mainsheet tackle half way along its length right above the bridge deck. So I have bought the gear and fitted it and I am much happier, although the cost of the rail and the mainsheet car was exorbitant (more than 200 Euros). I have also removed the now redundant rail from the transom and altogether I think the arrangement is neater, cleaner and much safer. Now I have to fill in the holes left by the previous fitting and then I will be ready to sail. At the moment though, the UK and France are being battered by the remnants of Hurricane Bertha, so I won’t be putting to sea for a few days yet.

Meanwhile here is a picture of a gift from my good friend Alain, given to me for my new boat. It comes from an eighteenth century Newfoundland Cod fishing vessel – a three masted tall-ship. Alain tells me it was used to control the wind. A slight turn here or there can change wind direction and strength, just what you need on a small sailing boat. Problem is where to attach it? Apparently the guy who knew died a long time ago!

Seaward 

Low Spot

I suppose there comes a time in every project when you wonder whether you should ever have begun; a low spot when the tasks seem overwhelming and never ending. I’m surprised to have arrived at this point so late in the process – a lot of the boring cleaning, sanding and polishing and painting has been done and I now seem to be in a phase of having to undertake dozens of small tasks. This should be more interesting than the months of mindless sanding but at the moment the boat seems to be fighting me every step of the way.

Nothing is straight forward at the moment and every task seems to require a good deal of lateral thinking in order to establish a process which will lead to a satisfactory outcome. Fitting sliding hatch doors in the cockpit for example, turned out to be a real time consuming pain. The runners obviously had to be parallel to allow the doors to slide but there wasn’t a single right angle to be found anywhere. I got through the job but there were several sleepless nights spent trying to develop a method. Now the latest problem is refitting halyards to the mast. The ropes came in a sail bag so it is guesswork as to each rope’s function and they were pulled through internal mast pulleys. To date I have spent two days trying to get the ropes back through and round. I’ll try again tomorrow with three new ideas – just hope one of them works.

None of this is helped by the fact that it is now June and I want to be on the water. Added to that I have to go to the UK for two weeks to see family, deadlines are being missed and it is all very frustrating.

 

So to cheer myself up I have just spent an hour looking at pics – before and after - and I can certainly say I have made real improvements to the old tub – I shouldn't moan – and if I can get those halyards fitted tomorrow I may feel better – meanwhile family and friends have been advised not to talk about the bloody boat!

Seaward

A Stroll Around the Boatyard

Weather has been so good recently I took time out to stroll around the boatyard and was pleasantly

surprised to note that I now seem to have the shiniest boat around, even though she is cloaked in fine dust from gel coat sanding and polishing.

Anyway here is an interesting boat that I came across. Her owner brought her up on the top of the tide careened and antifouled her.

She’s interesting in that I guess she reflects the passion (often misplaced or misapplied) that us boating folks seem to develop. For many of us sailing is only half the story. The other half is about boat ownership – and not just any old boat. In my case it’s a passion for an old Westerly Nomad – not the prettiest or fastest of boats, not even the best design that her architect came up with, but when I’ve finished with her, she’ll certainly turn heads, even if only because she looks so unusually retro.

In the case of the boat in the picture, it seems that some guy in Normandy wanted a South Seas trading schooner and, because he couldn’t find one for sale in France, he decided to commission a naval architect to design and build one for him.  Well into the build he noticed that the architect had stipulated aluminium masts, this didn’t fit with the owner’s sense of aesthetics or his wish to have an ‘authentic’ design. He wanted wooden masts but the architect insisted the additional weight would unbalance the vessel – and so at enormous expense, the owner insisted on carbon fibre masts sheathed in wood. Wooden masts taper and so the dimensions of the wood cladding strips had to be drawn, measured and cut using the latest high-tec computer CAD/CAM equipment. So, she now looks like she has wooden masts but despite this, everyone who looks at her feels she looks ‘odd’ in some way – not quite seaworthy. Maybe if the masts had really been wood, the hull dimensions would have been different. To the best of my knowledge she hasn’t left the estuary since she was brought here. I might be wrong of course but that, at least, is the word on the river.

Meanwhile, here is another boat which showed up here recently. I’m not sure how seaworthy she is either but she looks like a lot of fun (in sheltered waters). I think our US cousins would describe her as a ‘Shanty Boat’. Plenty of space and accommodation, great for river exploration, but take a liferaft and don’t lose sight of land!

Seaward 

Westerly Nomad (2)

Rig and Rudder

Well there seems to be quite a bit of support for the idea of purchasing a Westerly Nomad and this one seems to tick a significant number of boxes (although a few boxes remain unticked and there are still a few unanswered questions) Maybe someone can offer suggestions.

Firstly, the boat is ‘sound’ to the best of my knowledge. I undertook a boat surveying course last year organised by the International Institute of Marine Surveyors and seriously considered taking it up as a part-time retirement activity. Unfortunately, the cost of professional indemnity insurance for a rookie surveyor is such that I would have had to work full time to cover the fees, and that would have put me back to the 9-5 routine I was trying to avoid – so it didn’t happen. I do feel qualified to survey a small boat however, so I’m satisfied she is sound and, if I get it wrong, well, I can blame the surveyor but I can’t sue him.

She certainly fits the bill for shallow draft and as a triple keeled vessel, she’ll take the ground without falling over – so she’s good for estuary and canal. Previous Nomad owners have crossed the Atlantic and everyone tells me she is a good sea boat although she is slow. Cabin accommodation is likened to that of a 26 or 27footer, so she’ll be comfortable for two.

The Nomad is essentially a modified Westerly 22 and the Westerly 22 was Günter rigged – so maybe (and this needs further research) just maybe I could rig this Nomad as a Günter. The question is whether in developing the Nomad  from the 22, the designer moved the chain plates for the shrouds - I don’t know. Why does this matter?  Well, there can be no backstays with a Gunter rig so the responsibility for stopping the mast falling forward rests with the shrouds, attaching them as far aft as possible. The Nomad was always produced as a Bermudan sloop with backstays – so did Rayner move the shroud fitments forward when he added the chain plates on the transom? Interestingly enough, the Nomad has twin forestays, one of which sits inboard and attaches to the mast at two thirds the height of the mast – pretty much where the forestay on a Günter rigged vessel would have been. This seems a little like over-egging the pudding (as we say in Yorkshire) So, did Rayner simply add a mast headed forestay and backstays to the existing Gunter rig arrangement to accommodate Bermudan, or did he alter the location of the lateral stays as well? If the answer is the former, then I could perhaps consider conversion to Gunter. Either way this isn’t top of my list of priorities – it would be nice to do – if and when all the other issues have been dealt with.

At the moment I am more concerned with another modification which has been made to this particular Nomad. The rudder has been changed and moved to the transom and the space saved in the cockpit has been used to create an outboard well. Now this is both exciting and worrying. The new rudder looks strong enough and her fittings seem robust. The outboard well seems to be well-made and strong. If this modification works it frees up inboard engine space and makes for a cheaper and easier to maintain power source. The rudder however, is in a new location and is more exposed. Allain, a professional boat builder and sailor suggests that the new location for the rudder should improve performance over the original design and that if I am worried I can protect it and strengthen it by fitting an iron bar between from the bottom of the rudder and the bottom of the keel. A job, I might consider after a season’s use when I have got the measure of how she performs. 

With these modifications there is no question of bringing the boat back to her 'factory setting' so I certainly won't be 'restoring' a Westerly Nomad, instead I will be 'renewing and updating' a modified version. This isn't a problem for me, in that I always wanted to end up with something more comfortable that the rather austere vessels typical of 1960's GRP. 

So, you can guess my interest in this Nomad is more than casual. I know this boat will be in my price range (because they all are) but a price has to be negotiated and my concern is to achieve a fair settlement neither feeling ripped-off nor feeling that I have ripped anyone else off. I’m into Simple Sailing and Low Cost Cruising but I don’t want to achieve this at anyone else’s expense (unless they are a banker of course – they seem to be able to look after themselves well enough!). Now, these boats are old and so relatively cheap in the UK but rare in France so lets see what happens.

Seaward

La Fete de Doris

From an Internet Café

Well, this frugal lifestyle can have its downsides. I’m currently trying to move from French Telecoms to ‘Free’ to get cheaper international calls, broadband and some kind of advantageous mobile phone system. All will be well when the transaction goes through but it can take up to two weeks to sort. In the meantime, blogging has to be done through laptops and internet cafés, which is a pity because there is a lot to blog about.

Firstly, there was the Fete de Doris, the biggest yet with over 100 dories plying the estuary all through the past weekend. Also, I had my first sail as crew of the good ship La Passagere, a nineteenth century lugger recently bought by my good friend Allain, for use as an opportunity for tourists to get a taste of the sea, AND I have finally tracked down an interesting boat which I hope to see in the near future. 

Anyway, the weekend of the Fete de Doris was truly beautiful, lots of sunshine (rare this year) and gentle breezes which were a godsend to the countless people rowing each stage. The welcomes at each of the twelve slipways were very warm and the refreshments provided to the participants were generous and quite alcoholic. There was live music in each village and several boats also managed to keep the music going between stages thanks to crew members who brought accordions along with them. 

SO, sorry for the slight hiccup in transmissions but hopefully, things will improve shortly and normal transmissions will resume at the rate of two per week. AND the moment, I have my new internet set-up I’ll be posting one of Susan’s new monthly recipes, and a new quiz page for September, so if you haven’t attempted the quiz yet, you only have a few days left.

Seaward

  

Westerly 22

Don’t know about the rest of the world but this little location is unseasonably wet and cold this year. Last week we had the longest day of the year and apart from a particularly pleasant April the weather so far has failed to deliver anything remotely resembling summer. Are we downhearted? You bet!

Still on the brighter side I managed to crawl onto a Westerly 22 the other day (not the one in the picture). 

Unfortunately she had been converted from Günter rig to that of a standard sloop.

Regular readers will know I am attracted to a Günter rig vessel largely because it makes mast handling very easy and as I am hoping to take whatever boat I purchase via canal from the English Channel to the Atlantic, a Günter seems a sensible solution.

This Westerly in particular was not for sale so the owner was refreshingly candid with me. He told me he had converted to a standard sloop rig several years ago, largely because it improved her sailing performance. According to this guy there are downsides to Günter which to date I have failed to appreciate. The first one is that because the mast is in two sections, the upper section being raised with the sail, you cannot fly a foresail from the top of the mast. At best you get what is called a fractional rig’ with a smaller than average jib. Not only can you not fly a large jib, but for the same reasons, your stays and shrouds cannot be rigged to full mast height either. The lack of height of the ‘permanent’ mast also means that you cannot rig backstays. Finally, I’m told that no matter how hard you pull on the halyard it is difficult to get the sail-carrying spar raised tight against the mast so despite your best efforts the top half of the sail is likely to sag to leeward, thus spoiling performance.

Out of that litany of drawbacks, the one that worries me the most is the absence of backstays. On a lake or river maybe but in any kind of a sea, you’ll have to put a good deal of faith in the rig design to keep the mast upright without backstays.

On the other hand though, I was completely charmed by the interior of the vessel. Its hard to describe, but essentially, because the cabin sides are taken right to the edges of the hull, you have a remarkably large cabin for a relatively small boat. There is even room for a sort of wooden bureau/bookcase with sliding Perspex doors above the cooker and sink – a really homely touch.

From the outside the Westerly 22 definitely looks ‘quirky’, the product of a single mind rather than a committee and certainly nothing like you would get from a designer concerned more about looks than performance.

I guess with a Westerly 22 you either love her or hate her. Susan, took one long look sighed and fell in love with her strange one-off whaleback shape, partly I suspect because the Westerly reminds you somehow of the modern sort of lifeboat carried on cruise ships. The impression I got was that she would be a safe steady but unexciting vessel. Maybe that’s what I need.

Anyway, on to other news. 

• This morning I read John’s (The Unlikely Boat Builder) latest article on his blog and was completely blown away – he’s a very good writer, extremely knowledgeable, and his latest idea of telling the same story from his, and then his partner’s point of view, is excellent. Too many of us guys get off on the excitement, risk and adventure aspect of sailing that we fail to bring our partners with us. I have to say, I have been there, not with Susan fortunately but when this happens, us guys are the losers. So we can all learn a good deal from what John and his partner have to say.

• Talking of partners, my  ‘Simple Sailing Low Cost Cruising’ owes a great deal to the time and support Susan give to it. I would love for her to add stuff from time to time but so far I have only mastered the technology enough to give her one page. So, her contribution at the moment cannot be archived – it’s good for one month only. Her current page therefore will stand down sometime next week to be replaced by new material for July – please visit her June page before it disappears, and the come back again next week.

• Susan, won’t say this herself, so I’ll say it for her, she really is a great shipmate and an excellent sea cook – one of her recipes is to be featured in the Summer issue of Practical Boat Owner

• Also new for July I’ll be posting a monthly boating quiz (with answers published at the end of each month). What’s that all about? Well, I’m learning about boats and the ways of the sea. Setting a monthly quiz helps me learn, it may be interesting for you – and if I get it wrong I can rely on you guys ( and galls) to draw my attention to it!

Seaward

Lysander Sailing Boat

Percy Bandford, not a huge name in yacht designing, but a real revolutionary in his day. I mention him because I came across two examples of his designs the other day, sadly too small for my requirements and probably too far gone for me to renovate. One in particular attracted me because she was gunter rigged. I don’t want to bore readers with my passion for this rig, but for new people to this neck of the internet, a gunter has arelatively short mast in a tabernacle, which makes mast raising and lowering easier. An extra spar is attached to the sail. It is raised when the sail is hoisted, thus increasing the length of the mast. This means that the total length of mast is shortened when you reef the mainsail, so not only do you shorten sail, you shorten the mast as well. This lowers the centre of gravity – thereby increasing stability as the wind rises. Another advantage is that both the mast and the gunter spar sit inside the overall length of the boat with no overhangs when she’s on a road trailer.

So there she is a Blandford designed beautiful pocket cruiser called the Lysander. Percy was one of a small band of British designers who popularised sailing in the 1950s by developing plans and kits for very small cabin cruisers which could be built at home using marine plywood in a geodesic kind of way. That’s to say the tension developed in the ply when it was bent to take up the shape of the hull were the boat’s real strength. By bending sheets of ply in tension against each other you could do away with heavy expensive framing. He also, took advantage of the emerging use of bilge keels to make sure that these designs were happy on cheaper half-tide moorings. In his own words (reflecting attitudes of the day) a Lysander kit could be put together by a ‘man and a boy’ in about ten weekends.

I sailed an old Lysander about ten years ago, she was light, fast as a dinghy and very comfortable. Most were 17 feet in length; this one was a 19ft stretched version, a big boat for me at that time but this was lake sailing not sea sailing. At sea maybe I wouldn’t like her so much.

There are downsides to purchasing this type of boat though, especially for anyone purchasing one second hand. The quality of construction depended on the skill and patience of whoever put the kit together; some were built of inferior exterior ply which was significantly cheaper than marine ply but much more prone to rot and delamination.

That shouldn’t be a problem anymore because the exterior ply versions will probably have rotted away after all this time. Find one in good condition and she must have been made out of the real stuff. Sadly the one I looked at the other day was just too far gone for me to repair and, in any case, it would have required a transom hung outboard for auxiliary power, and that puts her firmly on my ‘no thank you ‘ list.

Looking at her though, I was reminded of Joshua Slocum’s famous book ‘Sailing Alone Around The World’.  Joshua was the world’s first solo circumnavigator and he did it on a shoestring. In the book he describes rebuilding an old boat for the trip. She was called the Spray, and he points out that in law the Spray remains the Spray even if there is only one original plank left after the renovation.  My task, if I had bought the Lysander would have been equally drastic. 

One other interesting low cost cruising gem from  Joshua’s book, is that when he was ready to start the voyage he didn’t have a chronometer so he bought an old alarm clock and boiled it in oil. It kept good time and worked perfectly through the voyage. 

So, a while back John (the Unlikely Boat builder) commented that he feared the list of boats that suit my wish list – ‘good sea boat, shallow draft, gunter rig, good accommodation’, may be a very short list indeed. In truth, I think he suggested that there may be no boats at all which would meet my requirements.  Well, I’m still optimistic because if the Lysander had been in better repair she would have met three of the four criteria listed above. Actually I’m not being entirely truthful here – she was far too small! But this brings me back yet again to the Westerly boats. Apparently, Denis Rayner, the originator of the original Westerly boats did build a shallow draft, GRP gunter rigged vessel with inboard engine options – the Westerly 22, Mmm need to have a look at one.

Seaward  

The Best Rig For A Sailing Cruiser? (3)

What About a Lugger?

Previous posts about Gaff and Gunter rigs, left me wondering about the traditional craft in this neck of the woods, the Rance Estuary in Brittany France. The old boats here are Luggers. So, why was that? What did the old guys know about these craft that made them build more and more? According to my old copy of *The Oxford Companion to Ships and the Sea, they were a 17^th or early 18^th Century development used particularly for fishing and coastal trade. Essentially, they were more ‘Weatherly’ than their predecessors, the Square Riggers.  Come to think of it they are a kind of square rigger in that a Lugger has a square(ish) sail set fore and aft rather than across the hull. The Companion also suggests that Luggers were the rig of favour for smugglers and privateers. Interestingly, the town of St Malo at the mouth of the estuary, is known as the City of Corsairs (for Corsairs read Pirates).

The French often use the term ‘Chasse Maree’ to describe a lugger. The use of the term originated in Napoleonic times; a rough translation would be ‘Sea- Hunter’. The fastest of them carried a huge area of canvass spread over three masts carrying lugsails with a jib to complete the rig. Some of the larger vessels had long bowsprits and bumpkins and could also set a topsail above the main lugsail. The drawback, or the price they paid for speed, was in the number of crew needed to control the clouds of canvass. They were also slow downwind and could easily be caught by a more traditional square-rigger. The strategy adopted must have been to beat to windward of any vessel they wished to escape.  

Essentially there are two kinds of lugger. The original Lugsails were set up as ‘dipping luggers’, this required the crew to lower the sail sufficiently to enable the forward end of the lug together with the tack of the sail to be passed back around the mast whenever the vessel tacked through the wind. In this way the sail was always set to leeward of the mast on each tack.

A later version was known as the ‘standing lug’. With this rig, the forward end of the sail was browsed down as the vessel moved through the eye of the wind. It was less popular and rapidly developed into what we would now call the Gunter rig.

Does the Lugsail have a place on my ideal ‘low cost cruiser’? Probably not but they are very pretty boats and I’m pleased to have researched the possibility. Often, when deciding what you DO want, you have to consider and discount other options. Lugger’s lovely to watch but not for me.

*PS – the Oxford Companion to Ships and the Sea is one book I will never part with. Its an essential resource for any boat person. You might pick one up on Amazon (scroll down if you want to order one).

Seaward

The Best Rig For A Sailing Cruiser? (2)

Gaff Rigged Sailing 

Thinking the other day about Gunter rig, set off a whole train of thought about alternatives to the Bermudan rig and whether any of them might be more appropriate to my needs. There is a part of me which says that all these old rigs, gaff, lug, or gunter had a purpose. There would have been reason behind a decision to rig a boat this way or that and maybe we’re missing out on something by simply accepting that a Bermudan sloop is the only rig for a modern cruising vessel.

The older rigs were generally developed for working vessels and it would suit owners to develop rigs powerful enough to drive the vessel with a minimal wages bill for paid crew. One way to do this would be to divide the sail area into manageable sizes of canvass. So a gaff cutter, for example, would have a mainsail, topsail, and two small foresails; lots of canvass, but no individual sail which could not be handled by a single man or boy.  Obviously, in the UK with its changeable but predominantly westerly winds, there would be local variations but it’s also worth remembering that these old guys worked with the elements not against them. Deadlines were less specific and the notion of thrashing up a channel against wind and tide would seem idiotic to them. No, they’d take the obvious and easy solution drop anchor and wait. It was more sensible to them to have a vessel which could take advantage of favourable conditions than build something designed to fight the elements.  In terms of resources they were ‘time rich, cash poor’ and the rigs they developed reflected this – Now, does it strike you that there are some parallels here? I’m in the fortunate position to have plenty of time but few resources ‘Simple Sailing, Low Cost Cruising’ isn’t that what I’m trying to achieve?

So gaff, has to be an obvious consideration, when all is said and done it isn’t too dissimilar to a Gunter. The main difference I guess is that the sail is more square, (having four sides rather than three) and the additional spar stands away from the mast rather than being an extension of it. Not so good to windward as a Bermudan, but faster on a reach and at least as fast on a run. Unlike the Gunter rig It is possible to have backstays to support the mast but they have to be ‘running backstays’, i.e., you unfasten one and tie the other whenever you gibe, otherwise they foul the gaff as it comes across. At sea, on a steady course, this wouldn’t be much of a chore but in confined waters where you are gibing frequently it could become a bit of a pain.  In light airs, you raise a top-sail on its own spar above the main, and in heavier winds, you reduce the area of canvass by removing it. When you bring the top-sail down the spar comes with it so, as with the gunter rig, reefing effectively reduces the height of your mast and lowers the centre of gravity, making for a stiffer vessel.

The interesting thing about gaff from my point of view though is that it is relatively inexpensive. There isn’t a great deal of science to sail design for a gaffer, and (so I’m told) you could make your own sails.

The downside? Well, obviously a gaffer won’t point so high to windward, and unlike a gunter rigged vessel the mast may not be so easy to raise and lower. There are a lot more ‘ropes’  with a gaff-rigged boat than with a Bermudan, but then, more ropes means more fun – nobody should go sailing if they don’t like hauling on rope!

Seaward

Gunter Rig Sailboat

Give me a Gunter

Has the Bermudan sloop taken over the world? In dreaming about that boat I intend to buy, renovate and cruise, one of the ‘nice to have’ options will be a mast I can raise and lower with relative ease. One of the voyages I am planning will involve a trip across Brittany by canal. Sailing across the English Channel to get there and sailing out into the Atlantic at the other end. An easy mast therefore has to be high on the list of needs. A ‘Gunter rig’ might be just what I need.

In effect, with a Gunter rig design, you get a short mast attached to the deck in a tabernacle for easy raising and lowering and a lighter, shorter spar attached, to the mainsail. When you raise the mainsail, the shorter spar is hauled up into the bargain adding significantly to the total height.

Gunter has a lot going for it. When both masts are lowered, they are no longer than the length of the hull, so there are no protrusions when the masts are down and you are moving under engine power. You get the same benefit when road trailing – nothing sticking our fore or aft. Another benefit is that reefing in a strong wind is more effective. Essentially when you haul down on the mainsail to put a reef in, you are also lowering the top-mast. So the mast height is reduced and this in turn lowers the boat’s centre of gravity, making her stiffer on the breeze.  In light airs, you can slacken the top-mast and make your mainsail baggier to catch every bit of breeze, and in strong winds, the added flexibility of the top-mast allows you to spill wind out of the sail.

So, why aren’t there more Gunter rigged boats to choose from? Well, part of the answer seems to be about ‘fashion’.  By definition, Gunter rigs are ‘fractional rigs’, the short main mast limits the size of foresail you can carry. This is unpopular with racing types who often want to carry foresails as tall, if not as big, as the mainsail. In racing, windward performance is everything, so the Bermudan triangular main and a foresail flown from the mast head rule. In effect racing style and the priority given to windward performance tends to dictate what is available to the rest of us.

To be fair, Gunter has a few downsides. The lack of a single tall mast means that backstays can’t be used. Gunter rig designer tend to pull the spreaders further aft but this doesn’t fully compensate for the absence of a backstay. When you’re running downwind therefore you have to be a bit more careful but for the kind of cruising I intend to do, the benefits still seem to outweigh the disadvantages.

Seaward