Some cat rigs with a French flavor...

A good way to spend a day out on the water, politicians in France unanimously doing the right thing (think about that for a minute), and just in case you have not been paying attention...

Over at Voiles Alternative there's a great discussion of the fabled "Punch" catboats from the design office of Phillipe Harle that you might want to check out.

Listening to Ingrid Michaelson

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Something not at all about alternative rigs...

A pretty simple request, not exactly a shining pillar of democracy, and in the "petty, stupid bigotry" department...

So, this got me thinking...



... about the thought process of going from one sailing rig to another.

It explained a lot.

Listening to Ethan Luck

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a couple of boats I'd love to have...

A fracking waste, some scary reading, and in the "still not over it" department...

I happened to see over on Orcas island in the great state of Washington that someone there was selling a pair of CAL 20s... You even get a discount if you buy them both.

I have to tell you that if they were here I'd be all over them in a flash.

Just think what a great opportunity having two identical hulls to test out clever and cunning ideas of the rig sort with the advantage of having a control model in the mix, Wouldn't it be nice to actually test various rigs like junk (and junk variations), crabclaw, balanced lug, and so on in a real honest-to-goodness scientific manner?

I get excited just thinking about it...

Listening to Couer de Pirate



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Running back stays...

A very interesting lecture, some important reading, and the best concise riff I've read on the Indiana stupidity yet (though BadTux comes close)...

The other day someone mentioned to me that they'd never have a boat with running back stays. The reason given was that they were an accident waiting to happen and it got me thinking. Mostly about how so many attitudes regarding the practice of sailing have changed and not all for the better.

Running back stays make a lot of sense. They're really quite simple to use and add a big safety factor to a rig. That said, folks who don't like running backs think just the opposite and suggest they add a lot of difficulty to the sailing workload (apparently akin to doing calculus in your head while juggling a mixed fruit bowl) and, more importantly, that they are inherently unsafe and the cause of many lost rigs.

Admittedly running back stays do add a couple of lines to deal with but, difficult? Done right it is less work than a jib sheet and set up with a modicum of intelligence hardly worth talking about. So, I just don't see the difficulty.

As for running backs being responsible for lost rigs and suchlike. I've yet to hear of a single case of a running back stay being the cause of a lost rig. Point of fact the cause of every instance I've come across is someone doing something stupid. Case in point an uncontrolled gybe is not caused by a running back stay but by someone not paying attention. So, hardly fair to blame a stay (or the boom for that matter).

I still think something like the publication "Accidents in North American Mountaineering"
geared to sailing would be no bad thing in sorting out the nuts and bolts of why things go bad on boats and people get hurt. If we did, I suspect, running back stays would have a much better reputation and we'd all be a lot safer...

Listening to Mr Elevator & the Brains Hotel (and getting my Farfisa/Iron Butterfly groove on)

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two hulls, two masts...

The main attraction of Cuba, greedy bastards, and in the "Yeah right" department...

Bernd Kohler has a new design up his sleeve that is well worth checking out.

Color me interested...


Listening to Michel Colombier

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On not being a true believer...

Pretty much says it all, dumb as a bag of hammers, and in the "paid administrative leave" department...

I apparently cause some folks problems where rigs are concerned. My crime being that I find merit in a lot of different rigs which in today's "there is only one true path" mindset world is considered a heretical sin of a high order.

For example, I don't get on very well with folks enamoured of the junk rig. That being said, I do happen to think junk rig makes a lot of sense and, while I'm a member of the JRA (you really should be as well), I just don't quite fit in because I don't fall into the idea that the junk is the "BEST" rig religious fervor party line. My take on the rig is that it's certainly a good rig and, in some cases a "best" rig for someone's particular circumstance but, like all rigs, it is far from perfect.

The balanced lug rig, which you probably know happens to be my favorite rig and far and away more powerful and cost effective than the junk, is still far from being a perfect rig. I love the rig but I'm not going to embrace the rig with a religious ecstasy that blinds me to it's disadvantages or other rigs good points...

Comparing the two, I have to admit I feel the balanced lug makes more sense if you honestly compare their strengths and weaknesses. But more about that another day...

I could go on with any number of sail types and rigs... gaff, Bermudian, wingsails, etc, which all have their strengths as well as weaknesses, but you get the picture...

The real truth of the matter is all rigs make sense in most situations and not so much in others. Not addressing this fact is counterproductive to getting the most out of whatever rig you happen to have or are thinking about using. The bottom line being that the more you know (spelled s-a-i-l-e-d) about all of the available rigs out there the better off you'll be.

Listening to 6 String Drag

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The power of negative input...

A little worthwhile reading, some stuff you need to know about, and something worth a listen to from Jay FitzGerald...

Way back when I was building our first Loose Moose (a Phil Bolger 'Jessie Cooper" design), I expected a certain amount of hassle of the negative input variety... Hey, it was an "Odd" boat and not what most people think a boat's supposed to be like.

The thing is what I did not expect is how easily seeds of doubts planted by others tend to take root and grow like Kudzu if you're not paying attention.

A good example of bad seeds growing out of control was the mainmast... The Jessie Cooper design has a free standing mainmast with a balanced lug rig and this seemed to bother a lot of the folks who visited the build site because...

1. The mast did not have standing rigging
2. The mast did not have a track
3. The main halyard had a simple sheave at the masthead which was considered insufficient
4.  It was wood

The seed of doubt that took hold and kept me up nights was the issue people had with the simple sheave ... People thought that since the sail had both a yard, a boom, and a chunk of sail area that I'd never be able to raise the sail without significant added mechanical advantage in the form of more blocks and a winch.

So as the seed grew into a bush of doubt, I found myself looking at winches and other various schemes to add a six-part purchase to the top of the mast. This, of course, slowed down the work effort and distracted me from stuff I should have been doing...

Worse, now that I had decided there just might be a problem with the halyard sheave all of a sudden anytime someone pointed out a possible problem/issue, which anyone who's ever built a boat knows happens daily, I found I was much more receptive to allowing it to take root.

One morning I woke up to find I thought the whole boat sucked... Not exactly the sort of mindset you want in the home stretch three weeks before you launch your boat.

Since I really had to finish the boat I put the doubts on hold with the resignation that "I'll just finish the sucker and then redo the mast after" .

Once on the water with the boat floating right side up I felt a lot better. So I stepped the mast, rigged up the sail, and, fully expecting disaster, proceeded to raise it. No problem at all and the sail, and yard zipped up the mast faster than the proverbial greased pig..

All that worry for an issue that never really existed.

That said, some of my friends who had issues with the weight of the sails, yard, and boom all had boats with masts that had tracks and even with big winches they had to huff, puff, and strain to get their mainsails up. In most cases, sail track adds an amazing amount of friction to the equation and that's why everyone thought my simple sheave arrangement would not work. They were used to all of that friction that the balanced lug simply does not have and I was stupid enough to listen...

Listening to the Rolling Stones

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Not as good as Roller Derby but a sure sight better than wrestling...

Dorworth on Yosemite, how Orlov went to camp, and the politics of denial...

Recently I was reading a designer of boats slinging crap at another designer of boats...

Not an uncommon occurence. Designers of boats being one of those groups, as a whole, who don't play well with others and the accepted way to get ahead is not to, you know, design a better boat but to attack another designer's work.

The downside is that the whole not playing well with others thing tends to slow down the evolution of boat design a lot. While obviously the whole frothing at the mouth and slinging poo can be quite entertaining and I'm just a little embarrassed to admit I am gleefully waiting for the other designer to retaliate and sling insults and poo back (sort of a cross between roller derby and WWF).

I expect it may get ugly...

What bothers me is that both designers in question actually are arguing concepts that don't really make much sense and are exhibiting a whole lot of dumbass where composite structures are concerned.

I find this to be a somewhat scary state of affairs because it would seem that their sole understanding of composite stucture stems not from long study of materials various properties but simply a catch phrase from advertising copy spewed out from Carbon R Us which, of course, is not really about how to make a better composite but to sell carbon fiber.

There is so much misinformation floating around about carbon fiber that it's nearly impossible to understand what's what and folks building boats depend on designers to have their act together on the subject.

You'd think a Composite Structures 101 would be available online...

Listening to Alan Price

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a very good article you should read...

How to screw up science, mean scary bullies with pocket protectors, and Farly Mowat the author of  "The Boat Who Wouldn't Float" and "A Whale for the Killing" has passed away...

Since we were speaking of one-hit wonders, I thought it only fair to point you to a very good article by Reuel Parker (his hits just keep coming) on rotating wing masts.

Rotating Wing Masts part 1

Rotating Wing Masts part 2

Listening to Steam Powered Giraffe

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an interesting rig...

Moldy Chum (the best fishing site I know of) points out something crazy (or is it crazy making), problematic aspects of revolving doors, and benefits for a few at the expense of many...

Since we were speaking of rigs outside the mainstream you should take a look at this...

The Lateen rig on this Antonio Dias design makes a lot of sense, it's been around for just about as long as folks have sailed, and it can push a boat along quite well with a very small investment in gear.

It's pretty as well...

Listening to Beau Jocque and the Zydeco Hi-Rollers

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on the need to step back...

On the politics of solar energy, what's a fair profit, and in the "we've been lucky so far" department...

Whenever I mention junk rig (as I did in the last post) my email fills up with folks commenting both pro as well as con and it's quite illuminating because everyone seems to be looking too close.

Which is a lot like the old conundrum of not seeing the forest for the trees...

Now, I like the junk rig and it makes a lot of sense for some people but it is not a panacea or a religion that suits everyone's needs.

That said, a lot of people are attracted to the rig with a certain religious zeal and like most zealots their beliefs are based more on faith of supposed miracles rather than any sort of reality.

Which is funny as a goodly portion of the mail I receive on the subject (both pro and con) is from people who have never ever sailed a junk rig but are convinced of its wonderfulness/horribleness and serious true believers.

There are any number of excellent simple rigs that we should be looking at for cruising as an alternative to the same old same overly expensive, frail, and complicated Bermudian/Marconi rig other than the junk but the advantage of the junk rig is it is a popular rig of the minority sort and there are quite a few people proselytizing with a great amount of missionary zeal... So, it's easy to fall into and that's no bad thing.

Really.

Of course, jumping into a relationship with a new rig (think Las Vegas wedding) does not always make for a long and happy relationship which is why you might want to take a few steps back and think it through...

Listening to Southside Johnny & The Asbury Jukes

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Sometimes an alternative choice would be a goodly thing...

C&L makes a good point, so does Ian Welsh, and a class you might want to consider...

I was looking at the Barros Pop 25 design again the other day and it is still a pretty great little boat.

That said, the more I think about it, the rig really starts to bother me. The cause of my irritation is that the cost of the rig is way too much of the overall building and outfitting budget to make me a happy camper.

Which is not to say it's a bad rig but it is an expensive rig and, for a boat designed to be a serious budget cruiser, it seems somewhat out of place.

Maybe it's just me but an alternative rig would open the design to a lot of budget builders who get stopped dead once they start adding up the costs of the rig.

Which is not to say someone with a copy of "Practical Junk Rig" or "The Chinese Sailing Rig - Design and Build Your Own Junk Rig"
would have much trouble sorting out a more affordable rig and sail plan but still s simpler "normal" (or what passes for one) rig would make the Pop 25 a lot more attractive for its particular niche market.

Listening to Guadalupe Plata

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