Even though I am thousands of miles away from my boat this summer, she is always on my mind. This week, I’ve been all smiles, because Issue 63 of the Junk Rig Association Magazine just came out, with another article (by yours truly) about Flutterby.
See the second panel in the JRA logo? Guess who unwittingly inspired them to do that!
For over 15 years, Barry and I have been members of the Junk Rig Association, an international group of people who are interested in junk rigs. They’ve been following our progress with Flutterby‘s unique rig, and when I wrote about our first test sail, the editor of the newsletter asked to reprint my article.
“Urk!” I choked to Barry. I was a little embarrassed. I’d written that piece in a very exuberant but tongue-in-cheek style, and putting it into an international publication required some major rewriting. I carefully rewrote it, splitting the article into two parts, and submitted it with photos:
I am so proud to share these with you! Not because of my writing, but because I was able to share Barry’s accomplishment with the world. He has designed and built his own rig, the only one like it in the world, and it works!
Many members of the JRA are expert sailors who know that the Bermudan rig is not the only option. We’re not nuts or crackpots, just evangelists for something that’s worked for thousands of years. Of course, writing for the JRA Magazine is like preaching to the choir.
Even if you never plan to own a junk-rigged boat, the JRA is a wonderful, encouraging organization that produces a beautiful, inspiring magazine. Check out the JRA website: http://junkrigassociation.org/.
At the end of next week, I’ll be living aboard Flutterby, currently in Georgia, for the first time in seven months. Ohio, Washington, and California were great, but I’m looking forward to unpacking my suitcase again.
I should search for myself on the ‘net,
For this week I could never forget,
Cameras on either side,
Snapping pix of our ride,
As we cruised down the Ditch, all sails set.
This is another limerick I wrote last month, when we sailed the ICW from Vero Beach to St. Mary’s, Georgia. Eventually, I’ll get used to all the cameras pointed our way — this is what we get for making such an unusual and beautiful rig!
You’re going to love this! Mepsnbarry.com now has a short video of Flutterby sailing, with a musical soundtrack featuring my friends Michael Greiner and Doeri Welch. I filmed it during our shakedown cruise with the new junk rig in December, 2012, in the Intracoastal Waterway, near Wabasso, Florida. The “Easter Egg” portion came from a 2009 Christmas celebration on the hard, in North Carolina.
On Thursday, the 13th of December, the sky in Brunswick, Georgia was gray and cloudy, threatening rain. The temperature had plummeted, and boaters in the marina hunkered down in their cabins by their heaters. A steady stream of cruisers had left the Brunswick Landing Marina in the prior two weeks, heading south in search of sunshine.
I stopped in the office that morning to give Sherry a heads-up. “If you notice our slip is empty today, we’re not leaving without paying our bill. We’re going out for our first test sail.” She gave me a big encouraging smile and a thumbs-up.
We rooted through our lockers and dressed as if we were going for a winter sail in the Pacific Northwest, putting on layers of thermal underwear, wool socks, fleece jackets, gloves, and those ubiquitous waterproof red jackets and black bibs we call “foulies.”
A warning here for our landlubber friends: If that technical term left you shaking your head in dismay, beware of what’s coming. Even our sloop-rig friends may complain that I’m using too much junk-rig jargon. Since it’s hard to scroll back and forth to footnotes in a web document, I’ll explain the jargon as best I can at the bottom of each paragraph.
We departed the marina on 12-13-12 at 13:01. It took us about a half hour to motor up the East river to the Brunswick river, which is wide and deep. Looking up the river, we could see a couple of huge container ships docked and unloading a half mile away. To the left, under the soaring Sidney Lanier Bridge, the casino boat was docked, but they weren’t moving either. We had the river to ourselves, so we set about hoisting our sails for the very first time.
The wind was gusty, ranging from 10 to 15 knots, and we could see by the water rushing past the navigation buoys that a wicked current was ripping through. I had hoped for a mellow, easy first sail, but that was not to be.
I left the motor running as Barry began to hoist the 500-square-foot split-rigged mainsail (the mainsail is the one in front…split-rigged means our sail extends four feet in front of the mast, but the part around the mast is cut away). Keeping in mind that the main on Flutterby’s original rig was only 350 square feet, I gave him a conservative order to keep two panels reefed (A reef is a way to make the sail smaller when the wind is blowing harder).
Our mainsail has seven panels that work kind of like a window shade. The rig was designed to easily put up to five reefs* in, and with some extra work, can even rig it in a storm with just one-seventh of the sail. However, that afternoon, the word “easily” did not apply, and the process of simply raising sails took over 45 minutes.
View of the Sidney Lanier Bridge
I was focused on the helm, making sure that we weren’t swept sideways into the massive bridge footing, as Barry started hoisting the main using the 3-part halyard. With our multi-part halyards and sheets, we end up with a lot of extra line piled in the cockpit, but we hardly ever have to use a winch.
That first hoist, though, things went wrong. As the third sail panel started to go up, Barry realized that the yard-hauling parrel* was fouled** by the topping lift***, so the yard couldn’t go up all the way. The lazy jack sail gatherer**** for the jiblets***** didn’t work.
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*The rope that positions the yard, which is the pole at the top of our sail.
**Fouled=messed up
***Ropes from the top of the mast that hold up the sail bundle so it doesn’t fall on our heads when we are reefed or not sailing. The sail bundle includes the sail fabric and the battens, which are poles that go between each of the panels.
****Contraption of rope and webbing that hangs from the topping lift to keep things tidy.
*****On a split rig, the bits of the sail that are in front of the mast.
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N.B. I can see that writing this to Barry’s requested technical specifications is going to be a bit of a challenge!
Our rig was designed to be sailed from the cockpit, with all the various control lines running back there. But when things go awry, somebody has to clamber up on deck and straighten it out. Barry spent a lot of time that day clambering up on deck to straighten things out. Still, we did eventually get the mainsail hoisted, and then we turned our attention to the mizzen (the smaller sail that is at the rear of the boat).
We didn’t have any problems hoisting the mizzen, and finally, it was time to turn off the engine and trust that we could maneuver this 33-foot vessel under sail alone.
Blessed quiet.
That special moment, one that all sailors know and appreciate, was followed by high-fives, cheering, and victory-dances (but not on top of the cockpit grate!) by the crew of the s/v Flutterby. For the next 60 minutes, the sound of water rushing past our hull was accented with peals of joyful laughter from yours truly. After five years of waiting for this moment, I was giddy and giggling.
The two of us took turns taking pictures and fighting for the right to steer. It was like we had a beautiful horse, and we both wanted to ride. We were both very curious to know how high she could point, or go upwind, but three knots of current kept sweeping us down the river, so our GPS track didn’t show a lot of progress. Still, we fairly flew when we went downwind, especially when we put the two sails out on opposite sides of the boat. Some junk-rig sailors call that “wing and wong” instead of “wing and wing.”
We didn’t go very fast that day, occasionally seeing boat speeds of five or six knots. We were a little unsure of ourselves, the weather, and the new rig, so we kept it slow with our double-reefs, but the potential was there to go much faster.
The whole time we were sailing, we were near the awe-inspiring bridge. The bridge towers are 485 feet, the clearance is 185 feet, and it’s the longest bridge in Georgia. Hundreds of cars passed by, along with the hardiest joggers and walkers. Did they see us? Did they notice our beautiful red-and-white butterfly sails?
Finally, we decided to call it a day and head back to the marina. Barry started the noisy engine, and I lowered the sails, a process that entails releasing the halyard* while pulling in the sheet**, the adjustable downhauls***, and the yard-hauling parrel. One thing I love is the windvane effect of the junk rig — we don’t have to turn the bow**** of the boat into the wind to raise and lower our sails. Like a weathervane, we can just let them swing freely in the wind as we raise and lower them.
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*The line that pulls the sail up.
**The line that controls the position of the sail relative to the wind.
***Little fussy bits of rope.
****The pointy end.
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And then we returned to our slip, triumphant. Flutterby was now a proper junk-rigged sailboat, and we were ready to head south with the other cruisers for the winter.
Pictures of the big event:
Is this the way a sailboat is supposed to be?Happy Meps at the helmRig designer Barry at the helm, with a perfect hat to match his sailing jacket. What a satisfied smile!
What we needed to fill was the role
Of photographer: That was our goal
Then along came a yacht
And they took this fine shot
Of our sails. Thank you, Traveling Soul!
12-23-2012 UPDATE: The guest limericks just keep pouring in. Do you have one for us?
12-19-2012 UPDATE: Make that three guest limericks!
Two guest limericks, from opposite corners of the USA, were inspired by the news that Flutterby is now sailing!
This one comes from x x, also known as Kevin Keane. In 2010, he shed his own precious blood to help us launch Flutterby:
I wish I could write a good Limerick
not a poem, but truly a Limerick
but try as i might
I can’t get it right
I can’t find a word rhymes with Limerick
Here’s one from Pat McNeely, who wants to paint Flutterby’s portrait (Columbia, South Carolina):
When Hank told me about your fine rig,
I almost danced a big jig,
It’s finished, Hank said,
As he went off to bed
Saying sailing’s your favorite gig.
This comes from Roger, of Jo Hee (Key West):
Let go of that nasty ol funk
Put all the tools in the trunk
Cause this is the day
You two sail away
On your just-completed junk!
And this one is from Limerick Nick, of Valkyrie (Seattle):
The sailing is your happy spot
After so many bad days of not
Barry fixed the frigging
Messed-up old rigging
Now Meps thinks he’s totally hot!
Though the weather was cloudy and gray,
On the thirteenth, that red-letter day,
All our friends round the world,
Heard our sails were unfurled,
And they joined us in shouting, “HOORAY!”
Dad’s garage is our workshop, therein
Is the stuff that we’ll need to begin,
We will lay plywood flat,
And we’ll draw lines on that,
While his car is out, to his chagrin.
But what’s this? While her spouse was obsessed,
Margaret boarded a plane for the West,
She’s gone off to give care,
To a friend they both share,
Leaving Barry to sew all the rest.
So he lofted the panels and cut,
Out the sail fabric, cheerfully, but,
Figuratively, a wall,
Stopped the man. Then a call,
To his wife, got him out of that rut.
I’ll be helping with the sewing when I return later this week. And I’ve provided emotional support by phone every day. But please, feel free to leave your encouraging comments for Barry on the blog!
Oops… I just figured out that comments are disabled for the limericks section. That’s goofy! We’ll have to fix it one of these days, when we’re not making sails in Dad’s garage. Well, send him an encouraging email instead. But don’t tell him I said so.
There once was a lady named Ann,
She’s an awesome friend with a big van,
For our carless existence
Required help and assistance,
To begin on our junk sail-rig plan.
Said our friend, as to Lowe’s we propel.
“Please beware of the dog-mothball smell,”
With that big engine purring,
We hauled plywood and furring,
Don’t apologize, Ann: Your van’s SWELL!
I first had a dream of building a junk rigged sailboat almost twenty years ago. For the last four years I’ve been planning to build a junk rig for Flutterby–even before we had looked at her as a possible boat to buy.
Since we arrived in Vero Beach at Christmas, my job has been to design some sails to put on her. OK, there have been many other things to do, including designing and installing a solar power system Now I’ve pretty much run out of rig design questions to chase my own tail around, and I’ve got a design good enough to show off to other junk rig designers. I don’t know how many of our readers are junk rig designers, but you can still see what we plan to put up on Flutterby.
