Dipping Lug

[Romeo]

As an experiment thinking of rigging a 20' open boat with a dipping lug rig. Sailing with a crew of 3 or 4. Anyone had any real experience of using dipping lug? Thinking it will be educational, entertaining and quite hard work.

 

[Kelpie]

I learned to sail on a dipping lug!
Until recently I was a volunteer skipper on two different sizes of lug-rigged open boat- a 27ft and an 18ft. The larger boat needed a crew of four minimum, the smaller can be sailed by 2. In practise an extra person is very helpful. Three or four on a 20ft boat will be fine, I would think.
A surprisingly powerful rig off the wind, clearly not the best to windward (but the boats tend to have very shallow keels so it might be a function of hull shape more than rig). Short tacking is a bit of an art, but in some ways getting the boats tacking smoothly is the whole point.
On the smaller boat especially, I used to take out two or more complete novices and have them tacking, gybing, and helming by the end of the trip. It's quite a steep learning curve, and very satisfying when the team gets coordinated and the tacks start to go sweetly.
On conventionally rigged boats, it's hard to find a job for everyone- on a dipping lugsail, the more the merrier.

 

[Romeo]

Do you drop the sail each time you tack, or can you swing the yard round the mast and swap the tack? What is the normal routine for tacking in a wee dipping lugger?

 

[PlankWalker]

Do you drop the sail each time you tack, or can you swing the yard round the mast and swap the tack? What is the normal routine for tacking in a wee dipping lugger?

If you want performance, you have to dip the yard round the mast, but for the odd tack or if your feeling lazy, just sail with it on the windward side.

Plank

 

[William_H]

As an experiment thinking of rigging a 20' open boat with a dipping lug rig. Sailing with a crew of 3 or 4. Anyone had any real experience of using dipping lug? Thinking it will be educational, entertaining and quite hard work.

I can only assume that OP has lots of sailing experience and a nice sailing boat but wants to set this dinghy up as a novelty display like a museum exhibit of yesteryear. In which case he should go for it.
If however he is not experienced and wants this as his main boat then I would say forget it. A regular rig ie Ali mast bermudan main sail and jib are just so much more efficient especially on the wind. (performance hard on the wind is the only thing that matters). IMHO there is plenty of crew activity with any sail boat you don't need any old fashioned stuff to make it harder still.
Just go like everyone els to a normal rig cos there are very good reason for doing so. good luck olewill

 

[Romeo]

I can only assume that OP has lots of sailing experience and a nice sailing boat but wants to set this dinghy up as a novelty display like a museum exhibit of yesteryear. In which case he should go for it.
If however he is not experienced and wants this as his main boat then I would say forget it. A regular rig ie Ali mast bermudan main sail and jib are just so much more efficient especially on the wind. (performance hard on the wind is the only thing that matters). IMHO there is plenty of crew activity with any sail boat you don't need any old fashioned stuff to make it harder still.
Just go like everyone els to a normal rig cos there are very good reason for doing so. good luck olewill

I have a reasonable amount of experience thanks, and have other boats. Always interested in getting more experience by trying other boat set ups. Not just a "novelty". I am looking for a practical rig for an expedition rowing boat, which will be simple to rig and remove, and will store inside the boat in such a way that we can still row. Bermudan with tensioned standing rigging is not really a realistic option. Standing lug, balanced lug, gunter, spritsail, gaff would no doubt be alternatives.

 

[Even Chance]

Lug rigs are great, and as said before, very powerful off the wind. Dont try and sheet in too far. The clew pulled in to the gunnel will sail great. Dont try and pinch either for the same reason. They cant make the same close-windedness as a bermudian rig. These were hard learnt lessons, and are well advised. I love my lug rig dinghy. Theyre good in a blow, cos the CE of the rig is very low down, and you can carry decent sail in a good wind easily. Ive had my clinker lug-yawl dinghy planing downwind in 25mph wind. It was fun, and highly unexpected!
Its now using a balanced lug rig, with a boom at the foot of the sail. Look into these rigs very carefully. They are much easier to control and sail, and are self-vanging. They are even more powerful off the wind!! The other bonus is that they look better than a standing lug sail. Much more traditional looking for a fine Scottish craft!

PS, if anybody wants her, she's for sale to fund the materials for the rebuild of my Hillyard 2.5!!

 

[Malabar]

The old naval montagu whalers had a dipping lug rig. Worked OK but I recall having to give a good heave on the bottom of the gaff to swing it round abaft the mainmast.

 

[Even Chance]

The old naval montagu whalers had a dipping lug rig. Worked OK but I recall having to give a good heave on the bottom of the gaff to swing it round abaft the mainmast.

Thats right, with smaller dipping lug sails, you can just slacken the halliard, and haul on the tack of the sail to bring the yard over. You need to make sure the mast ring or parrel bead ring are slack enough to allow this though.

 

[charles_reed]

I learned to sail on a dipping lug!
Until recently I was a volunteer skipper on two different sizes of lug-rigged open boat- a 27ft and an 18ft. The larger boat needed a crew of four minimum, the smaller can be sailed by 2. In practise an extra person is very helpful. Three or four on a 20ft boat will be fine, I would think.
A surprisingly powerful rig off the wind, clearly not the best to windward (but the boats tend to have very shallow keels so it might be a function of hull shape more than rig). Short tacking is a bit of an art, but in some ways getting the boats tacking smoothly is the whole point.
On the smaller boat especially, I used to take out two or more complete novices and have them tacking, gybing, and helming by the end of the trip. It's quite a steep learning curve, and very satisfying when the team gets coordinated and the tacks start to go sweetly.
On conventionally rigged boats, it's hard to find a job for everyone- on a dipping lugsail, the more the merrier.

Pussers' issue - anyone who's familiar with RN issue whalers has enjoyed the dipping lugsail and usually you have 8 on board.

 

[Kelpie]

Do you drop the sail each time you tack, or can you swing the yard round the mast and swap the tack? What is the normal routine for tacking in a wee dipping lugger?

On the boats I've sailed, there is an unstayed mast, a halyard, two tack hooks at the bow, and a sheet.
When rigged, the halyard is made off on the windward gunwale and so does the job of a stay.
To tack, the boat begins to turn up to the wind, the halyard is let out a bit, and the yard is unhooked and then dipped behind the mast. You need to get the timing right here; if you go through the wind too quickly (before the dip), the sail will be backed which makes it very hard to handle (friction against the mast) as well as potentially dangerous (masts have been broken!)
Once dipped, the sail is lowered all the way so that the halyard can be swapped to the other side.
It is possible, at least at the smaller end of the scale, to rig running stays which allow you to short tack without doing the full drop. This is considerably quicker and less effort. Alternatively, you might be able to rig the boat in such a way that the mast is just fine without stays of any kind.

One thing to remember with this type of rig is that it was designed with priorities other than simply performance. The entire rig can be stowed within the length of the boat, the mast can be raised or lowered at sea, there is no boom swinging at head height, the centre of effort is very low (as previously mentioned) allowing for later reefing, and so long as you are not trying to go upwind (who would want to do that!?) it actually has excellent performance. A further consideration is the sheer simplicity. Everything you need can be made by a carpenter, blacksmith, and sail-maker.

 

[tidclacy]

Have a standing lug clinker dingy, see my Avatar. Great fun, the rig is simple and fits inside the boat. There is a very good book " The Working Guide to Traditional Small-boat Sails " by David L. Nichols which gives a lot of info and tips on all sorts of rigs including the dipping lug.

 

[Spuddy]

Recall being told a tale about Montagu whalers. Dartmouth cadets used to race them singlehanded. To go about, the chap would shove the helm over then scamper from thwart to thwart to the mast, dip the yard then scamper back. Dunno if it's true or even feasible

 

[MASH]

Perhaps someone (Mavanier?) might like to explain to the rest of us unconverted Bermudians just how a dipping lug differs from a regular lug and how it is best used.

Fascinating stuff - bring it on - please!

 

[prv]

Perhaps someone (Mavanier?) might like to explain to the rest of us unconverted Bermudians just how a dipping lug differs from a regular lug

Not sure there's such a thing as a "regular" lug. I know of three types:

• Balanced Lug. Sail has a yard at the top and a boom at the bottom, both yard and boom cross the mast with about 1/5 of each spar ahead of the mast. They stay on the same side, so you have a "good" tack where the sail flows away from the mast, and a "bad" tack where it presses against the mast, spoiling the shape somewhat.
• Standing Lug. As above, but the boom ends at the mast like for bermudan rig. The yard still projects forward.
• Dipping Lug. No boom; the tack of the sail is secured well forward, usually right at the stemhead. The long lever arm of the yard pulling down abaft the mast pulls up on the luff, giving you luff tension otherwise unachievable in hemp-and-timber days. You also have a lot of sail area for not too much rigging, important if you're a poor fisherman in a place without many trees and rope is expensive. However, the rig is entirely non-symmetrical, so to tack it you have to lower the sail and hoist it again on the other side. (Kind of. There are various dodges for lowering it part way and swinging it around, possibly with the top end plonked on the deck. Feasibility depends on exact rig, size of boat and skill of crew.) OK for fishing, as you go out on one tack, drift while fishing (possibly with the mast itself lowered for stability) and come home on the other.

Standing and balanced lugs are basically dinghy rigs, though you do see standing-lug mizzens on bigger boats. Dipping lug was the classic fishing-boat rig of Scotland and the West Country, though I'm sure it showed up elsewhere as well. In Victorian times the Scottish ones got really big, to the point they needed steam engines to work the halyards and nets, but they were still faster under sail than they would have been if the engine drove a propeller.

I would love to sail on a big dipping lugger one day.

EDIT: I've also seen pictures of a split lugsail used on naval ships' boats, which looks to have been like a dipping lug with a slit from foot to head about level with the mast, and the forward part handled as if it were a jib. I don't know whether the sail was still dipped, and whether it was only a brief experiment or a successful design, but it was an issued rig and is shown in my 1930s Manual of Seamanship.

Pete

 

[Rossynant]

You don't really need to 'dip' a dipping lug, just on wrong tack some efficiency is lost; not a perfect shape as sail goes against mast. Not much felt when wind is strong, really. At a bigger incidence angle this is hard to notice - and square sail is best at bigger incidence angle, so it pays to bear bit more away from wind for better speed to get best VMG.
In light wind no problem to reset sail. And ofcourse this is great on a reach. There are many ways to rig this for any shape suits best the conditions; generally rig is simple and may be easily modified to suit. If you don't want it to 'dip' then tie tack at mast. Even can be changed to something like gaff; all is necessary - some rope...
Single sail or ketch perfectly possible for singlehanding. Very easy, handy, once you get aquainted.
On 20 footer furthermore this is not a question. One guy from here made 20 foot lug singlehanded cross atlantic. I'm not sure this boat even had as much as 20 feet, was shorter iirc...
http://www.palkiewicz.com/img/ekspedycje/atlantyk75/foto04.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacek_Pałkiewicz

PS the only one I know of lug rig in UK may be the right man to talk to: https://www.facebook.com/andrew.mccloud.96

 

[Romeo]

Perhaps someone (Mavanier?) might like to explain to the rest of us unconverted Bermudians just how a dipping lug differs from a regular lug and how it is best used.

Fascinating stuff - bring it on - please!

Picture of Reaper under sail:

The main sail is a dipping lug. The tack is secured forward of the mast, at the stem, and requires to be dipped when tacking to get the yard onto the leeward side of the mast to maintain that magnificent sail shape.

The mizzen however is a standing lug, with the tack secured at the mast. It does not need to be dipped on each tack (indeed it is left standing!), and the yard being on the windward side of the mast is not that significant in performance terms.

I have sailed standing lugs before, but never a dipping lug. What I have in mind is on a somewhat smaller scale than the Reaper! Because these boats had a reasonable number of crew to take part in the fishing, they had plenty of hands for the rig too, and so the fact that the simple rigging is fairly labour intensive in handling did not really matter (compared to say a Thames barge crewed by a man, a boy and a dog.).

 

[Kelpie]

For interest, the smaller of the boats I used to skipper is featured in this article. Note the image credit on the photo too!

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443524904577649524150261342.html#articleTabs=article

 

[Romeo]

Thank you all for replies. Wondering if I might coble something together from existing sails on my 14' boat, before I go the full hog and spend cash on a set of new sails for a 20' boat. I love seeing what is possible using the wind, some imagination and a wee bit of brawn.

 

[Even Chance]

Thank you all for replies. Wondering if I might coble something together from existing sails on my 14' boat, before I go the full hog and spend cash on a set of new sails for a 20' boat. I love seeing what is possible using the wind, some imagination and a wee bit of brawn.

I made the sails you see in the pics of my dinghy. I used old genoas to get the draught, and made the rest myself using a book on sailmaking and an old Singer sewing machine. Sewing the bolt-rope all round by hand was a pure headache, but it all looks and sails great in the end. I made trial sails out of cotton canvas with no draught to try the areas out first.
My main sail is a balanced lug, the mizzen is a small standing lug. The jib is boomed and self-tacking.

I also made a wee boat for my son to learn to sail. It has a balanced lug rig that I made. The test sail for it was a polythene tarpaulin with a dart in the tack to give draught.
Its so east to transport with the spars all fitting into the boat. Plus its so very simple for him to learn to sail with! 3 ropes:- halliard, downhaul and sheet. Steel centerboard and is self-righting.