Book Hunting.

[Tony]

Does anyone have a paperback or digital copy of the two books below that they would like to pass on to a Good Home?
1.  C.A.Marchaj  "Sail Performance:Techniques to Maximize Sail Power."
2.  John Leather  "Spritsails and Lugsails"
Can't  find anything on the internet at a reasonable price!

[Andy Dingle]

Ha! .. Nice try Tony. If someone gave me a copy of John Leather's 'Spritsails and Lugsails' - if indeed, anyone can source a copy - then it would certainly go someway to getting my mitts on one of them nice Storm 23's... with a lugsail!
Have you seen the price for even a second hand copy - even from the colonies?

As a casual collector of his tomes I too have been searching second hand bookshops all over in the vain hope the proprietor doesn't know its value. If I do happen across a copy I'll send you a picture of the front cover ...

[Rock Doctor]

Tony,
out in the antipodes there is a copy of John Leather's book in NZ and in Bendigo (Vic) for around USD 50.00. Look at ABE Books http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?sts=t&sortby=93&tn=spritsails%20and%20lugsails&an=john%20leather
Regards from OZ

[Rock Doctor]

Tony,
further to my post, postage from Oz to UK should be pretty reasonable too.
Rgds

[Tony]

Cheers, Rock Doctor!
That's very helpfull - I hadn't seen ABE Books on the net.  I'll drop 'em a line. Thanks a lot.

@Andy Dingle
What a kindly old soul you are , Andy.   All heart and ever willing to help!
(This is what comes of being a Swallow Yachty instead of a Swallow Boater, innit!)

Are you seriously considering a Lug rigged Storm 23? Good  choice.
You'd get a free berth at any of the French events, so long as it didn't look too posh!   (Try using old lobster pots as fenders.)

[Andy Dingle]

Tony. I wasn't really aware of the Storm 23, in that I knew it existed but knew nothing of the detail, until Peter C told me about it.
I'd been idly looking at the Caledonia Yawl, decked, with the balanced lug and sprit mizzen - beautiful I thought, but lacked the ballast that I have become accustomed to.
Then it occurred to me that the water ballasted Storm 23 with a balanced lug and sprit mizzen finished with that mahogany strip planking deck I had on my Bayraider (you remember?) would be just stunning..
So, yes, if I did ever go for a Storm 23, that is how I see her looking.. without lobster pots as fenders though, but ones made from the hair of selected Skegness maidens... hand knitted! That should impress the French.

I'm currently reading Leather's 'The Salty Shore' about the River Blackwater. A fascinating history of the boats and men who sailed them in that area. Always saddens me that we have lost so much knowledge and expertise... You're welcome to read it.

Andy

[Tony]

That's a kind offer,Andy, but what I'm really after is info on getting the best windward performance possible from a balanced lugsail. I can more or less keep up with bayraiders on a reach and do better on a dead run but I'm sick of watching them eat the wind out me otherwise!
(Competative? Moi?)
As you know, I'm not into racing that much (if at all) but my home port on Paxos is at the windward end of the island so it's a beat home every evening - or start the outboard, which is no fun.

The Storm 23 does not have the luxurious accommodation of a Bay cruiser but it looks like a great day boat - if you like that sort of thing.

[Michael Rogers]

Tony and Andy

SURELY you know by now the answer to your rig needs for your dream Storm 23 is - yes, it really is! - a beautiful camber-panel junk rig mainsail (which would go very well with a sprit mizzen).

I know I'm regarded as a complete nutter about this, but the proof of the pudding.... etc. Ask anyone who saw Cavatina in action during the England Raid at Falmouth in 2014 (cf photo in subsequent Water Craft): or during the Swallowboats (as it was then, so there) Jolly on Ullswater, also 2014. She is now running rings round any comparable boat in Studland Bay. Modern JR really really works, including to windward. Aesthetically, such a rig would more than match a balanced lug, and that's what JR really is (with battens) PLUS all the advantages of an unstressed rig (no stays etc), a leach under complete control, no sail flogging (so no scared landlubbers), easy gybing and effortless reefing.

Tony, the 'best windward performance possible from a balanced lugsail' is, let's face it, never going to amount to much. There are fleets of lugsail-rigged Lymington/Keyhaven/Avon Scows on the Solent which race very competitively: to get the sail as flat as possible, they have immensely powerful umpteen-fold purchases as kicking straps, but they don't get near bermudan, or even gunter- or gaff-rigged upwind ability. (On another forum I had a 'debate', which became almost acrimonious, about this with a character who was nearly national scow champion. At the time Cavatina was still just a gleam in my fanatical eye, so I couldn't put my sailing where my (I admit it) loudmouth was. Now, I'd take him on, on the water, any time.)

You may, or may not, have noticed that I have recently been much less 'loud' about JR on the forum than I have been in the past. This is quite simply because I have the rig to prove it in action. I think a JR Storm 23 would be a fantastic boat, and it would leave the bay raiders behind, including upwind.

That, you will be relieved to hear, is my two-penn'orth - for now.

Michael, ably aided and abetted by Cavatina (Trouper 12)

[Tony]

Ah! Michael ! You don't get it, do you!
I'm not interested in all this "my rig is better than your rig" acrimony. (Although I am against Bermudian Fascism in all its forms and admire your junk rig enormously.)
Sure, an expensive, highly stressed Bermudian rig will go better to windward than a balanced lug , and so, too, will a well designed, cleverly cut, fiendishly  strung, fully battened lug, I'm sure, although, if you come up against a speed machine like the Goat Island Skiff (rigged with a balanced lug ) you might find it going to windward quite as well as you do. The point is that the balanced lug is used on my cruising boats for its simplicity and handiness -  unstayed mast, halyard, downhaul and mainsheet - that's it! The sail is rigged quickly, raised without winches, more importantly for a single hander, drops instantly and securely and looks after itself. No slides to stick, no rigging to tangle, no fuss, no bother!
In performance, any type of lugsail (or sprit sail - see Thames barge,etc..) is superior, m² for m²,  to Bermudian on any point of sail - other than to windward.  It gybes sedately in a blow, without taking your head off or breaking any gear,  heaves to easily, won't deafen you with flapping canvas if you lie head to wind, and, unlike a spritsail, reefs easily. (All the points that you highlight for your junk rig - but simpler. )
The Bermudian compromises all of that for much better windward performance. Worth it for a racing machine when you can fly a spinicker to overcome downwind deficiancies, but for my kind of sailing, rather throws the baby out with the bath water. Having said that, I see no harm in getting as much windward performance out of MY lugsails as possible - hence my interest in John Leather's writing - rather than his books, which seem to have become collectors items, rather than valued for their content. (A shame, but never fear. Someone will digitise it on "Kindle" for free sooner or later.)
Aerodynamically, an aeroplane's wing is pretty well understood, a Bermudian sail seems to behave in a similar manner but square sails? There's something weird going on when a slight adjustment of the halyard position on the yard or downhaul position on the boom can make a huge difference for good or ill - and will also be affected by factors like wind speed and the sails' angle of attack. (Is this why controllable fully battened  junk sails go so well?) Are you familiar with the Catastrophe Effect, where one state suddenly flips over into another? I get the impression that something like that happens with the non-laminar airflow over square sails, especially off the wind. "Flip"and you're going like a train; "flip" and your dead in the water!
I would simply like to know more!

[David Hudson]

Here is  man I would love to meet.

Stuart H. Walker (born April 19, 1923) is an Olympic yachtsman. He was a member of every American team in international matches between 1961 and 1971 and was, in 1963, the first American to win Bermuda's Princess Elizabeth Trophy and, in 1964, England's Prince of Wales Cup. He was a member of the American Olympic Team, sailing a 5.5 Meter at the 1968 Games and the Pan-American Games, and a Soling in the 1979 Pan-American Games and the 2012 Vintage Yachting Games.

His first book, "The techniques of small boat racing", is still ranked as one of the best books of its type. Published in 1960, it covers the key elements of sailboat racing tactics before boatspeed became a dominant factor in the era of trapeze dinghies. I was given my copy in 1969. I note the cost as 35s, old shillings! It is still my favourite along with Walker's "Advanced racing tactics", bought in 1976.

These are at first sight "old books" but they cover our kind of sailing and I would recommend them to you all.

Oh and here is another 35 shilling masterpeace by the same author: "The tactics of small boat racing".

[Michael Rogers]

Oh I do get it, Tony! I misunderstood the extent of your loyalty to the lug sail (and, I grant you, it is second best only to junk rig), but I provoked you into being eloquent and informative. So thank you for that.

But beware: tweaking and 'improving' tends to lead to extra string etc, and before you realise it your prized simplicity morphs into something more complicated - horrors! And, btw, I dispute the implication that JR is complicated - it isn't, but yes, OK, not as dead simple as your BLS if latter is on an unstayed mast.

Best of luck!

I've just heard a story about Genghis Khan, I don't know if it's true. He'd subdued at least part of China, wanted a massive war fleet, realised that he and his minions had no shipbuilding know-how, so forced the Chinese to build his ships for him. They didn't want his maritime adventuring to succeed, but what could they do? So they built him a fleet of lovely fighting junks, but they reduced the bury of the masts (unstayed of course) so that, at the first really strong wind the ships met, the entire fleet was dismasted. (My story doesn't say what happened next.)

Michael

[Tony]

Hi, Michael.
Yes, you provoked me into being longwinded!
I like the Genghis Khan story. Not hear that one before . I can guess what happened next - the builder's heads ended up on a pole, most like!
Apparently, GK was adept at what my grandmother used to describe as "putting himself about a bit" with the result that half of Europe shares some of his genes. Far fetched, maybe, but one of his closer relations is now causing mayhem as a Traffic Warden in our village, swooping on Citroen Berlingos and Renault Kangoos, parked by pensioners outside the Health Clinic and exceeding the 30min time limit!
Eee! It's grim oop North......

The 'complicated' bit of a junk rig I hinted at was only the extra string needed to control each batten through the euphroe (See Fig 4 here:-http://www.thecheappages.com/junk/platt/platt_chinese_sail.html) - and, correct me if I'm wrong, the desirability of having each sail panel cut to allow a different amount of draught or belly for the optimum sail shape.
The balanced lug sail, of course, is as sophisticated in that respect as a builders tarpaulin, and none the worse for that! 

[David Hudson]

"The balanced lug sail, of course, is as sophisticated in that respect as a builders tarpaulin, and none the worse for that!".

The locals were still racing balanced lugs on Tiree in 1986.