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Believe it or not, Winkle Brig no 6 is for sale

Started by Old Forum, April 11, 2014, 09:38:04 AM

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Old Forum

Julian Swindell
Username: Julian_swindell

Registered: 03-2007
   
Posted on Wednesday, July 30, 2008 - 04:33 pm:      
After long thought and much research I have decided to change boats and so my beloved Winkle Brig, Pelican, is up for sale. If any of you are interested or know anyone who might be, please point them my way. julian.swindell@jegsweb.co.uk
Her replacement will be a Baycruiser by Swallow Boats, which will be built over the winter. All quite scary as this will be Baycruiser no 1. I am going to try to record the whole design and building process online. You can see it at
http://www.jegsweb.co.uk/boats/baycruiser/home.htm

Old Forum

Martin_cartwright
Username: Martin_cartwright

Registered: 04-2008
   
Posted on Friday, August 01, 2008 - 10:18 am:      
Baycruiser looks great. Glad you have been converted to the advantages of the Yawl rig!
How do you reef the main? (and how do you shorten the jib with the self-tacking boom)?
Many thanks for all the hard work you have put into the Winklebrig web site and good luck with the new project. I will watch with great interest.

Old Forum

Julian Swindell
Username: Julian_swindell

Registered: 03-2007
   
Posted on Friday, August 01, 2008 - 05:11 pm:      
Hi Martin
I have always been a fan of the yawl rig, having sailed a Drascombe Dabber for 13 years before the WB. The Swallow boats yawl rig just seems to correct lots of problems with the Drascombes. The rudder is in the right place and having all the sails boomed is magic, no flogging sails at all and the jib sheet is as light as a feather. Reefing is interesting. The theory is that you drop the yard into the boat, refix the halyard higher up, tie in reef points at the foot and then yank the whole thing back up. The practice is that the boat is so stiff you keep the main up until the wind is quite strong and then drop it altogether and sail on just jib and mizzen. It can do four knots like that and more because you can dump the water ballast with the main down. The balanced club jib can't realistically be reefed, but it is actually such a small sail that you would never want to reduce it, just furl it out of the way when you don't want it. I must admit I was sceptical about the jib arrangement, which doesn't seem logical (where's the forestay for goodness sake!) but once I had sailed with it I was a complete convert. No flogging when going about, goosewinging is a piece of cake and backing it to go through stays is just so simple. If you are head to wind and stationary, you can just spin the boat round by backing the jib to one side and cocking the mizzen to the other.
As you can see I'm quite excited by the whole thing.