I'd sooner schooner...

[DownWest]

Yep, it was. Without checking, it might have been Alain Colas as the skipper.

I was asked to be the agent for Freedom Yachts in Portugal, mainly so the German Co I did some work for could get a discount on a 65/70ft three master. Went off the boil when the transat contender had problems with masts getting loose..

 

[Tranona]

That 'Traderonline' link is exactly what I meant by a bermudan schooner. Not to my taste

Wash your mouth out with soap and water! That is an Ocean 60. Built in Poole in the 1970's and highly regarded. Very popular with sailing clubs and charter operators in its day. Mate of mine used to skipper the Lloyds Bank sailing club example. You could see the stars coming out of his eyes whhen he talked about it.

 

[dancrane]

How true.

To Tranona, and all other observers: I regret, and retract, my casual air of disrespect about the Ocean 60. (You may note that I mentioned having felt the vessel looked familiar. And seeing the pic, reminded me that there was another along similar lines...the 75, was it?)

Yet, in truth, however superb the marque's ability, I know it wouldn't be my rig of choice, especially if I were to spend a small fortune taking apart a perfectly sound sloop or ketch, and replacing its designer's best shot, with my whimsical alternative. Gaffs, yes; I'd go at that like a shot if my wallet could, because there's something intrinsically, ethereally impractical about the rig, and however inefficient it may be, it's so beautiful, one doesn't care.

The staysail schooner can be, too; I suspect it's a question of proportion; if the sails are the right size and the masts correctly placed, then aesthetically, it's a real winner (I've seen it done badly, too, so I'm not saying it's foolproof). But I've high hopes.

(The Ocean schooners are speeding back towards me, through the dense fog of fifteen years of wine and whisky in my mind. Yes...they were and doubtless still are, a very unusual, appealingly affordable alternative to most yards' set-ups...)

 

[prv]

Beyond any doubt, I would go for gaff schooner rig, if I could. But the degree of customisation required for gaffers, (all-new sails, separate topmasts, gaffs, multiple halyards, a mainboom half as long as the vessel's l.o.a. and...(my chief dread)...running backstays)...all sounds seriously pricey and problematic. Whereas...

...I'm assuming that fairly standard masts and sails can be assembled into a staysail schooner

I think you might be underestimating the cost and effort of your frankensloop approach, and so the difference might not be as much as you expect. By which I mean that the alterations needed to schoonerise a production sloop will cost so much that any difference in the cost of the rig itself will be less significant.

Personally, I wouldn't be happy trying to improvise my own rig in the modern yacht style. The leverage of the tall masts you need for bermudan sails (or your staysails) scares me; on a production boat I know that the loads have been carefully calculated so everything will probably be OK, but I don't have the knowledge to do those calculations myself. The shorter mast, bigger fittings, lighter loads, multiple shrouds/forestays/etc that you tend to find on traditional rigs, I'm more comfortable to deal with empirically.

Also, bear in mind that a lot of traditional gaff stuff can be homemade for much less than manufactured yacht fittings. Take a shroud for example - if you have a modern mast, you need a swaged T-fitting at the top end, a swaged fitting of some kind at the bottom end, a rigging screw, a toggle or two. You need to pay someone to put the fittings on the wire too. Go and google the prices of those parts, in the sizes you'll need, then multiply by the number of shrouds you'll need.

Alternatively, have a wooden mast. Then your shroud needs only a loop at the top end. Learn to do wire splices, or make racking seizings using strands unravelled from offcuts. At the bottom end another loop the same way, around a deadeye. Then a lanyard of any modern rope will be better than the original, never mind dyneema etc. Extra "fittings" purchased: a strip of leather (for the top loop) and an offcut of hardwood to whittle into a deadeye. I've seen discarded (burst) fenders cut up and used as a substitute for leather in square rigs, and if you're altering the accommodation you'll have hardwood offcuts to hand, so maybe all you'd need to buy would be the wire. And galvanised is cheaper than stainless.

You don't need or want fidded topmasts in this sort of size boat.

I don't find running backstays problematic even singlehanded in my boat, but at a small performance cost you ought to be able to arrange a rig that doesn't need them. Bristol Channel cutters did without runners by having the aftermost shroud a reasonable distance abaft the mast.

Unless someone's planning a brigantine?!

Jay Benford can sell you plans for a 30' brigantine: http://www.benford.us/pdf/Benford30.pdf

Pete

 

[dancrane]

Thanks Pete. You come alarmingly close to pushing me gaffwards. But I still say, I've seen examples of staysail schooners that were very pretty, so I reject 'Frankenschooner', though I did laugh reading that.

I'm glad to be still at the stage where I can change my mind!

I couldn't open the brigantine link...but last year, whilst on the Cowes-Southampton ferry, I saw a truly tiny square rigger, no more than a thirty-footer. Would that be Mr Benford's design? There can't be many out there!

 

[DownWest]

Talking of Benford, a mate is tiding up his 34ft pinkey gaff ketch from Jay's board. But the original, Sunrise, was a schooner with an unusual rig. The ketch rig on friend's boat has two yards on the mainmast for square sails.

http://www.benford.us/index.html?cruisingsail/

The pic is the ketch version with his pyramid rig.

 

[prv]

I've seen examples of staysail schooners that were very pretty, so I reject 'Frankenschooner', though I did laugh reading that.

I actually wrote FrankenSLOOP - your plan seemed to be to transplant wholesale two modern sloop rigs onto the same hull.

I couldn't open the brigantine link...but last year, whilst on the Cowes-Southampton ferry, I saw a truly tiny square rigger, no more than a thirty-footer. Would that be Mr Benford's design? There can't be many out there!

The link was to a PDF - do you have a reader for that (eg Acrobat) installed? Unfortunately there isn't a normal HTML verson that I could find.

It showed an overview of his "Benford 30", which although catalogued as a single design has had many variations of both hull and rig over the years. A brigantine is shown in silhouette as one of the options, though unfortunately there are no further details.

Did the boat you saw in the Solent look like the square sails were handled from aloft?

Pete

 

[Bajansailor]

Dan, re the wee brig you saw in the Solent, it might have been one of these little brigs - http://www.littlebrig.com/index.html

Re staysail schooners, does anybody remember the Carter Lunas? There was a 35' and a 50' version - here is a link to the 35' : http://sailboatdata.com/viewrecord.asp?class_id=5945
But I dont think this is quite what you have in mind.....

The Downeaster yachts built in the USA offered a choice of staysail schooner or ketch rigs on their 45' yachts.
Sailboatdata has some info on the 45' here http://sailboatdata.com/viewrecord.asp?class_id=4769 but no drawing of the rig sadly.
And although there are various 45's for sale, all are ketch rigs - which perhaps implies that folk love their schooners......
I have a catalogue on the 45 somewhere, will try to find it tomorrow.

Here is some info on a lovely old staysail schooner called Bounding Home who apparently is in need of restoration - http://www.cannellclassicboats.com/cbb_bounding_home.html
Although the lines and GA plan (and photo?) seems to have disappeared....

Here is a photo of her - http://library.mysticseaport.org/ere/odetail.cfm?id_number=1984.187.146634F

Her hull form is very similar to the yawls designed by S & S in the 30's. I have a very poor copy of an article about her from the October 1933 issue of Yachting magazine.
This was kindly sent to me about 10 years ago by Baum & Koenig in Germany who specialise in classic yachts.
And I had written off to them because a friend of mine spent her formative sailing years in the 60's on Bounding Home in the Virgin Islands, where her parents were running her as a charter vessel.
My friend would still like to get BH back........

Changing tack again, re Tranona's note above re the Lloyds Bank Ocean 60, I think that she is probably the same Dark Horse that Mike Bryon of this parish (http://www.ybw.com/forums/member.php?u=5846) lives on board with his family in the Grenadines.

 

[Bajansailor]

I found a catalogue on the Downeaster 38 which has some photos of the schooner rigged version, and a basic spec sheet which gives the different sail areas of the cutter, ketch and schooner rigged versions :

The area of the red / white / blue fisherman staysail in one of the photos above is 'only' 164 sq ft; then there are bigger versions in the form of a gollywobbler (496 sq ft) and gollyacker (727 sq ft) which must be enormous!

Edit - There are some lovely photos of staysail (and gaff) schooners in action at Antigua Classics recently on http://www.photoaction.com/clas11/clas11.htm

Have a look at Atrevida, Elena, Seljm, Ocean Star, Heron, Rebecca of Vineyard Haven, Juno, Russamee, Marie des Isles and Mary Rose, and then just dream about broad reaching through the tradewinds on one of these vessels........

 

[Rum_Pirate]

Build or get one of these

OR

http://users.hal-pc.org/~norman/lschoonr.html

and

http://www.ace.net.au/schooner/index.htm


http://www.ace.net.au/schooner/inprint.htm#schooners

 

[dancrane]

Thank you gentlemen, any doubts I might have had about the workability of schooner rig, just went out through a non-return valve. The Down-Easters show how well the staysail schooner rig can look on a hull with fairly modern beam/coachroof/topsides proportions (though plainly there's nothing 'Average White Boat' about these hulls)...

...and the tiny U.S. gaffers which Rum Pirate recommends, show that what I read as a child, in (I think) Wendy Fitzpatrick's book, to the effect that "schooner rig on yachts less than 45' long is considered rather a gimmick"...was nonsense. These boats are gems, and I bet they're less tender than similar designs with dull, everyday marconi rigs.

Regarding the miniature brigs, I'm similarly impressed by how right they look, despite their unusual use of a big-boat rig on a fairly standard, small modern hull. Lots of useful links to look through, there..