The rig designed by Bill Lapworth is not a bad rig for a VolksCruiser. For starters it’s fairly simple, reasonably robust, and will push you along quite nicely. The only real issues I have is that sail track sorta/kinda sucks and that the rig on most all CAL 34s is fifty years old or thereabouts. …
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 …
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 …
First of all If you have a boat with a working Bermuda rig keep in mind that it seldom makes sense to do a new rig (Lug, Junk,Crab Claw, or whatever). Remember the “Don’t fix it if it’s not broken” rule. Now, if on the other hand, the CAL 29 you’re thinking of getting has …
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, …
A Freedom cat ketch adapted to junk rig I wrote this back in 2008 on Boat Bits but it seems to have held up for the most part… I suppose the minute you say lug rig that everyone assumes you are talking about the “Junk” rig which is certainly a type of lug rig but …
The current JRA Newsletter (#85) has a very interesting article on building a junk sail by Paul McKay that has me thinking long and hard in terms of rigs for VolkCruisers. For me, the concept of a VolksCruiser is really all about simplicity in all of its various forms. Lug rigs in general are …
The other day a friend wrote me complaining that the boat project he was thinking of building was getting scary expensive and he used winches as an example. The winches spec’d out for his design, even with a deep discount added up to somewhere just shy of $7K. Quite an “ouch” factor for a small …
