The Top 50 Advantages of Junk Rig

Discussion in 'Boat Design' started by David Tyler, Jan 16, 2014.

  1. motorbike
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    motorbike Senior Member

    David, I like lug rigs, gaff, and all manner of ways to hang sailcloth so I trust that I'm not raining on your parade by being "anti". Enjoy your junk rig but its a quirky thing , like ferro boats some of which are spectacular and many of which are spectacular disasters you will get polarized viewpoints.

    Right now today, to go coastal cruising or sailing across an ocean the junk rig would be last my choice. For resale it would be my last choice and for windward work it would also be my last choice.
     
  2. pdwiley
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    pdwiley Senior Member

    Soooo - if you had a 12m sailboat hull and $10,000 to spend on the *entire* rig, masts, standing rigging, running rigging, sails, winches etc, and you had to buy all new materials - what would be your choice of rig, how much would it cost, where would you buy the components and how do you think it'd perform?

    You're allowed to make anything you can personally make and only include materials costs. If someone else makes things, you have to include labour costs.

    PDW
     
  3. Rurudyne
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    Rurudyne Senior Member

    Does he have his own shop and pretty much no life? :)
     
  4. CT249
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    CT249 Senior Member

    Why not go second hand? I bought a rig second-hand for less than that (allowing for inflation and the fact that it was for a smaller yacht) and a quick search reveals other rigs currently for sale that could possibly fit the bill and the budget.

    But even if the junk rig is best for your situation and boat, it doesn't seem to affect Motorbike's point that the rig would be HIS last choice for HIS boat.
     
  5. David Tyler
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    David Tyler J. R. A. Committee Member

    I'm a bit puzzled there. You're anti junk rig but like lug sail rigs - but the more correct name for junk rig is the Chinese lugsail. It shares with the standing lugsail, dipping lugsail and gunter lugsail the distinguishing lugsail characteristic of being a fore and aft rig with a yard that crosses the mast.
     
  6. David Tyler
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    David Tyler J. R. A. Committee Member

    "Different folks, different strokes". It would be a boring old world if we all sailed the same boats. We'd have nothing to talk about.
     
  7. David Tyler
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    David Tyler J. R. A. Committee Member

    There are those of us who make things and do stuff. Like building our boats and sailing them across oceans. That's a life. And a good one, too.
     
  8. Rurudyne
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    Rurudyne Senior Member

    Now, I didn't mean it that way and you know it!
     
  9. pdwiley
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    pdwiley Senior Member

    Because it always becomes a comparison of apples with oranges. Sure, you could find used equipment but that's not the point. People then say that such and such can be done for $$ because I did it, neglecting to point out that nobody else on the planet can because what they got was pure unobtanium. A recent example is a person I know who picked up a Hardinge HLVH lathe for $3000. The more representative price for such a machine is somewhere between 4 and 10 times that price. If I wanted one tomorrow for $3000, what do you think my chances would be?

    Taken to its logical conclusion, if you were given a rig for free because you knew someone who was scrapping theirs, does that mean that anyone can have a free rig?

    My way means that you can't claim that a rig that would cost say $50K to buy new can be done for $5K because one person actually managed it by being in the right place at the right time.

    I don't actually care what rig people use, any more than I do what hull form they use. I just don't like people glossing over obvious differences when it suits them.

    Friends of mine recently - as in less than a year ago - launched a brand new 40' cutter rigged boat. Their rig cost them $50K plus. Their boat is going to point higher than mine and sail faster on some points, not necessarily all, but they paid a lot for that extra speed. Neither hull is ever going to surf downwind so there's never going to be enormous differences. I've got an extra $40K in my sailing budget. Not being a purist, I can motorsail and buy a lot of diesel for that $40K if I have to.

    So far nobody who supports marconi type rigs has ever said that they could and have built their rig for a 12m sailboat for less than $10K. What that tells me is that, for that budget, I can sail a *lot* faster and further, because they can't leave port and won't be sailing anywhere.

    I'm not arguing about differences in efficiency, that's a settled discussion IMO. The things that David & Arne are doing with hinged battens and cambered sails are kind of interesting in an abstract way but they're introducing a lot of complexity and points of failure in the pursuit of small gains in pointing ability - and that's assuming the underwater hull shapes are up to the job. If I cared that much about the ability to point high, I'd use a marconi rig and be done with it.

    PDW
     
  10. pdwiley
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    pdwiley Senior Member

    I resemble that remark......

    PDW
     
  11. CT249
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    CT249 Senior Member

    I'm not having a go at any rig, merely pointing out that used gear can be a very cheap alternative. I confess that I do think that there's a fair bit of apples and orange comparison when people talk about junk rig costs - for example one repeatedly sees people saying things like "no winches needed" and "you can make your own sails" when both those attributes can be applied to other rigs as well.
     
  12. Rurudyne
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    Rurudyne Senior Member

    Cool.

    I, otoh, don't have the shop aspect ... yet.

    Working on it though.
     
  13. pdwiley
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    pdwiley Senior Member

    I agree with you. The difference is how one does things. Cutting a junk sail is pretty straightforward if you don't get carried away with cambered panels. Cutting & sewing a big marconi main is going to require a fair bit more skill. Some people will be able to do it.

    My objection to use vs new is where do you stop. If you say you can source a used marconi rig & sails cheaper than I can get a new junk rig, my obvious comeback is 'so what, I can source a junk rig used cheaper than your used marconi rig'. It's pointless. It also heavily depends on where you are and how good your contacts list is, or how good a scrounger you are.

    My design doesn't need winches. I *like* mechanical toys so I have quite a few. All bought from the USA, used, for a fraction of the price in Australia. I may well end up reselling most of them because I can't fit them all, nor do I need to.

    I also don't care what rig a person likes, any more than I do what hull shape they prefer. Very few of us are making a living from sailing boats so it's all pleasure expenditure. Whatever works. I've got sail plans for 4 different rigs for my hull, they've all been built at some point, they all sail. If I get bored with what I have, I might try something different.

    I think you've implicitly conceded my point anyway because you're not claiming that you can build from new materials a marconi rig & sails for a 12m boat for less than $10K. Which was my point.....

    PDW
     
  14. goodwilltoall
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    goodwilltoall Senior Member

    If you use the same type of materials for the Bermuda rig as you do for the Chinese junk you will get similar costs ($10,000.00).

    Use a wood mast, galvanized stays, the Bolger rope weave rather than tracks which drops the sail beautifully, low aspect and buy sails from the East at $5-6.00 SF for the cloth minus the several hundred feet of running lines and you're right there. This would be a more oranges to oranges comparison.

    You say 12M boat so I figure about 800-1000 square feet of canvas.

    Also without hesitation if you prefer it is very possible to find excellent used aluminum booms and masts all over the place and sails in very good to excellent shape as well. This is simply not the case with the Chinese junk rigs, I like them but these are facts and realities.

    Peace
     

  15. CT249
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    CT249 Senior Member

    I'm not claiming that you can build a new marconi rig for $10k because I haven't been bothered to spend the many hours working out costs and designing the rig, and without doing that I can't come up with a good price.

    However, I am sure that you can build a new marconi rig and sails that are MUCH cheaper than the standard 'off-the-shelf' price, because the latter is a price for largely custom professionally made gear suitable for the retail market, including overheads and profit.

    For example, you don't need stainless steel rigging with shiny SS swages and turnbuckles on a marconi rig - you can use gal wire and other forms of securing and adjusting the rig. A competent backyard welder can knock up a tough, if ugly, gooseneck pretty damn quickly and it would be a lot cheaper than the production version.

    The 'retail' outhaul system could be a track, a roller-bearing car with a custom clew fitting, a couple of turning blocks, a spectra line and a winch - but for a home builder trying to cut costs it could just be a lashing running from the clew to an eye in the boom. The price differential between the two is enormous, but the performance differential is arguably tiny.

    So the information on the web that seems to compare shiny pro-built 'performance' bermudan rigs with home-built simple junk rigs does not appear to be very fair. If there were people who were knocking up comparable bermudan rigs at home then there would be a reasonable basis for comparison, but I haven't seen that. It would be interesting to check out that information. It would also be interesting to see the cost of a 'performance' junk rig like the carbon-sparred one in the X 99 that still gets beaten hollow by the standard alloy-sparred X 99.
     
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