[Public-List] Check out this modification

Gordon Laco mainstay at csolve.net
Sun Jan 13 10:12:31 PST 2008


Hi there - 

It wasn't a junk...but a junk-rigged Folkboat, the class of yacht whose
Canadian association members' desire for a larger boat led to the
commissioning of the A30 design.  There was no pilot house (an abomination
on boats under 60' in length...) but the cockpit was decked over with the
companionway worked into a  hatch to which the sheets and halyards were led.
The boat's name was JESTER, and she competed in every single handed
transatlantic race from the first on until she was lost at sea only a few
years ago.  A replica of JESTER still sails with the same deck and rig.

The man who did this was also the man who developed the first working vane
self steering gear - 'Blondie' Haslar (I own one of his original vane
outfits which I will fit to SURPRISE some day)

The junk rig was miserably slow - when I had my Folkboat I had the op to
sail beside another with a junk rig and I have to say that our speed and
pointing ability compared to that rig were in different solar systems.  But
the rig did indeed make the boat operable with having to go on deck and I
imagine on stormy nights in the Atlantic that was something.

It was a small world in the yachting world in the '50's.  Blondie Hasler,
Francis Chichester, Dick Gibb, Humphrey Barton, Peter Pye, Miles Smeaton,
and others who were the pioneers of deep sea yacht racing and cruising all
knew each other and gave their names to the marine gear we still use today.

Somebody should make a movie about those guys...

Gord #426 SURPRISE


> The idea for this may have come from a relatively famous singlehander of
> the 50's and 60's who sailed a small Junk.  He had such a pilothouse on
> the Junk which allowed him to manipulate the sail and stay off the deck
> in bad weather--I can't get to my library now, so I can't find his name.
> 
> James McRury wrote:
>> I came across this modified A30 today --  check out the "Pilot House"
>> 
>> http://www.romeosmarine.com/alberg30extras.html
>> 
>> Cheers.
>> 
>> James.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
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