I noticed this morning that there’s a junk rig Virgo Voyager for sale on the JRA forum. I’ve always liked the Virgo Voyager as it’s a lot of boat shoehorned into a 23′ envelope. Even better is its shoal draft with bilge keels and it is one of the few production boats available with a …
I’ve always liked Colvin’s junk rig boats as they were in a sorta/kinda evolutionary step that never really made the jump to the next stage and, as a result, have a lot to tell us about sailboat design. Someone has an idea for a boat or rig and designs a sailboat based on that idea. …
So, here’s an alternative rig for the CAL 34… It’s the Simplicity Rig designed by Mark Smaalders and it makes a whole lot of sense in that it’s fairly inexpensive, has little to fail, and is simple. It’s what we have on “So It Goes” and it cost (mast, rigging, sails) less than a replacement …
There’s a J-29 up in the frozen north that I’ve been thinking about quite a bit. For those unacquainted with the design it looks something like this… It, like most of it’s J-Boat brethren, is a boat designed and built to be competitive so you may be wondering why the hell am I looking at …
There’s an interesting forum thread on the current asking price of a Pearson 367 on the Junk Rig association forum you might want to check out. Sure fixing up an older cheap boat might seem like a lot of work but, done with some care and a prudent budget, will greatly increase the value of …
I’ve always liked the gaff rig because it’s a stout spar that does not require a lot of tension to stand. There’s a lot to be said for that. While I don’t think that Tom Colvin’s junk rigs were fully evolved they did make a whole lot of sense.Take his Gazelle for instance. Minimal stays …
When considering changing to a rig like the balanced lug or junk, the first issue is that it requires moving the location of the mast. Finding the location is easy, but it can play hell with the interior. Free-standing masts, while not being as tall as the Bermuda rig, are larger in terms of diameter and …
Sailboat rigs are a problematic conundrum where VolksCruisers are concerned. For starters, most rigs on classic plastic boats have rigs that have evolved from designs for racing. They’re over-complicated, prone to failure, and expensive, which is not the sort of rig you want when voyaging on a budget. Adapting rigs to be simpler, more affordable, …
Boats in the VolksCruiser budget zone are going to have problems or issues you’ll have to deal with. Just accept it as part of the territory, which is not always problematic. A sailboat with the right issues could very well be to your advantage. There’s a Catalina 27 with a broken mast that would make …
The other day a reader dropped me a line where the subject of DIY came up and he pointed out that, unlike me, he could afford to hire folks to do work for him and if you had to DIY you might want to consider something other than yachting as a lifestyle decision… Not the …
