Bembridge Rig

Timbow

Timbow

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Reading an old book by Harrison Butler in the small room this morning, a section on rigs and sails and the need to be able to work to windward:-

"The old Bembridge rig must have been an effective one for this reason, it was a combined mainsail and topsail and however much reefed it always had a long luff"

Like a Gunter? Or not? and how was it reefed keeping the luff long? I can't quite picture it and Googling reveals nothing. Is it totally extinct? It is of no importance, just bugging me that's all.
 
The only thing I can find is this image: http://www.amazon.co.uk/BOAT-PLAN-Centre-board-Yacht-Bembridge/dp/B003MHE4BE which seems to confirm the "combined main and topsail" aspect using a kind of sprit instead of a gaff as such.

The sentence before the one you quote says "If you carry a gaff rig you must imitate the fishermen, reef the mainsail, but still carry the topsail and so preserve the luff". The way I read the whole thing is simply that the Bembridge rig would force you to follow this advice instead of taking in the topsail as the first reduction in sail (which would be more normal).

I don't think it's implied that the luff stayed exactly the same length while reefing, just that it didn't shrink as fast as taking the topsail off a low-peaked gaffer would do. Here's a cutter without topsail but with, I think, full main:

morwenna-sailing2.jpg


Imagine a topsail filling the gap between gaff and topmast-head. By removing that, they've shortened the luff of the whole sailplan by half or even more. If instead they'd removed the same area from the foot of the main while keeping the same topsail (like a bermudan reefing) the height of the luff would not reduce as far.

This is all my interpretation, based on no additional information, but I think it makes sense.

Pete
 
Timbow said:
"The old Bembridge rig must have been an effective one for this reason, it was a combined mainsail and topsail and however much reefed it always had a long luff"

Like a Gunter? Or not? and how was it reefed keeping the luff long? I can't quite picture it and Googling reveals nothing. Is it totally extinct? It is of no importance, just bugging me that's all.
Click to expand...

Kelpie, one of the Innellan class, had for many years combined main and topsails with a wishbone gaff in place of the original. She lost the arrangement in a rebuilt 20+ years ago - last I heard she was lying out of use somewhere (Ardmaleish?) looking rather sorry for herself.
 
Ubergeekian said:
Kelpie, one of the Innellan class, had for many years combined main and topsails with a wishbone gaff in place of the original. She lost the arrangement in a rebuilt 20+ years ago - last I heard she was lying out of use somewhere (Ardmaleish?) looking rather sorry for herself.
Click to expand...

Now that'd be the way to do it. I was imagining something either like a strong batten or a sprit of some sort, which would of course bugger up the set on one tack.
 
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