Junk rig ??

I can't help thinking it looks a bit silly on a modern plastic hull. But I'd love to have a real chinese wooden junk.

seeing countless old yachties staggering to the mast to reef a cracking mainsail which keeps jamming in the lazy jacks because the yacht isn't into wind looks quite a bit sillier.
 
By chafe I mean chafe crossing tens of thousands of miles of ocean, not weekend or coastal cruising, where it becomes a non issue.
I can reef my bermuda main in under a minute, and the furling headsail in less, so I don't see the advantages there.
You have to build the very complex sail from scratch, as there are very few used ones available.
I've raced several junks locally . I couldn't catch them downwind , but to windward they could never point any higher than 20 degrees less than I could.
With a mast on the lee side , how do you get a camber which is not in the opposite direction from the one you need? How do you get a smooth flow over a sail with a mast in the middle?
 
By chafe I mean chafe crossing tens of thousands of miles of ocean, not weekend or coastal cruising, where it becomes a non issue.
I can reef my bermuda main in under a minute, and the furling headsail in less, so I don't see the advantages there.
You have to build the very complex sail from scratch, as there are very few used ones available.
I've raced several junks locally . I couldn't catch them downwind , but to windward they could never point any higher than 20 degrees less than I could.
With a mast on the lee side , how do you get a camber which is not in the opposite direction from the one you need? How do you get a smooth flow over a sail with a mast in the middle?

have you done "tens of thousands of miles of ocean" in a junk rig? chafe is no more of an issue for junk rigs over bermudan.

I can reef my sails in literally half a second - over a hundred times faster than you - can you not see the advantage of that? - ie in close quarters manoeuvering - it increases your safety margin considerably.

Have you built a junk "complex sail" - it is very easy - establishing built in camber is straightforward unlike the subtleties involved in building a bermudan sail.

Pointing - can you explain why in the last Round the Island race a junk rig beat many supposidely faster boats to windward - your experience is out of date. Did you read the earlier post? - from a bermudan yacht?

Camber is essential - it works for junk rigs as evidenced above. You can pull the sail aft with the jointed system so the mast is almost at the luff. Yes the mast does interrupt the flow but so does the mast on bermudan boats - and the shrouds and forestays and crosstrees which a junk rig does not have.
 
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