Two Interesting Rigs

[Owly055]

     These two photos caught my eye.   The first is obviously a cat boat trimaran yawl....... "cat yawl" conversion.   It's clean and elegant with zero standing rigging.  I have an aversion to standing rigging.  It requires a lot of inspection and maintenance and failure of a single component of hundreds, can bring the works down.  Highly stressed chainplates are leak prone and sites for rot.    While a free standing mast is heavier than a stayed mast, it isn't much heavier if one includes all the standing rigging, spreaders, etc.   The mast is located almost exactly where I would locate a mast for a junk rig conversion on a trimaran, and that location is probably too far aft for a cat rig, hence the jigger to balance the helm and compensate.   It's pretty much a snapshot of the rig I want to build if you substitute the junk rig mainsail for the cat.   It's my belief that the jigger should offer a great deal of benefit as a tool to balance the helm, and/or self steer.    While hydrovane steering is wonderful, it is extremely ugly, and fairly complex, often looking like some Rube Goldberg contraption.   I believe that a jigger could be made to serve, and that has been borne out by several accounts I've read.     I'm speaking from ignorance here, as I've never sailed a yawl..........but I fully intend to.   There are in my mind at least, 3 ways a jigger could be used for self steering.   First by balancing the boat out providing an opposing force to bring it back as it falls off or rounds up, second it could be done with sheet to tiller steering, or third, it could be used as an actual wind  vane without the hydrovane due to it's size.     Clearly the yawl precludes the use of hydro vane steering in any normal configuration due to interference.   It could perhaps be located on one of the amas instead of the main hull.
     The second rig caught my fancy as I was browsing.   This fellow built a rather innovative and unusual rig with a self furling jib only, mounted on a ketch located mast, and no main or mizzen.  I'm not sure what one would call this rig???   I see the mast moved even further aft with a jigger behind the cockpit making a mainless yawl with a self furling staysail  ;-)   Obviously an easy rig to sail from the cockpit as it is, a jigger might make it a bit more versatile.    This is a one of a kind rig, and like all true innovators, this guy has my respect and admiration as should anybody who takes an innovative idea all the way.... weather it works well or not.   I like folks who think completely outside the box!    I've been a Bucky Fuller devotee since I first discovered him in Saturday Review Magazine back in the mid 60's.   His outside the box innovative  thinking in many areas has shaped my own view of the world more perhaps than any other person.

                                                                       H.W.

[Frank]

Yep..
Buckmiester was definately 'out of the box'
Brilliant man!

Gotta love the simplicity of that rig. Easy to furl to any condition quickly

[CharlieJ]

There was a guy long ago, who did a Stilleto like the mast aft rig. He was a subscriber to MultiHulls mag and named the boat after the Original editor. Some time in the very early
80's

Edited to add- the editors name was Charles Chiodi Founder of the magazine. Passed away in 2015

[Owly055]

I'd like to see two roller furling jibs, one to each ama (outrigger)...............

[Chattcatdaddy]

The second definitely is interesting. Looks well suited for multihull. Wonder how the setup would work with a Solihull.

[SeaHusky]

I don't know if this has come up but another "outside the box" thinker was Swedish engineer Fredrik Ljungstr?m. He designed a rig with two mainsails on an unstayed, roller furling mast.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ljungstr%C3%B6m_rig

[Owly055]

I don't know if this has come up but another "outside the box" thinker was Swedish engineer Fredrik Ljungstr?m. He designed a rig with two mainsails on an unstayed, roller furling mast.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ljungstr%C3%B6m_rig

Actually the yawl trimaran pictured in the first photo is a Ljungstrom Rig   It has a rotating  mast with two loose footed main sails, which are deployed together as a single sail when beating or reaching, but deployed wing and wing when on a run.  It's exactly the rig you are talking about.

                                                             H.W.