Pete and Annie Hill
We have found Badger performs at her best to windwards with a F4-5 and wind over tide – e.g. beating up a river against the ebb, because in a chop the foremast starts to ‘pile drive’ and ruins her progress. We have tacked through 85°, but in the above conditions would usually manage 90°. Wind against tide, things are less impressive!
We have acrylic sails – a stretchy material. Acrylic has the overwhelming advantage over terylene of being UV proof and over cotton of being rot-proof. You don’t need sail-covers and thus are more likely to go sailing, with one less job to do. You can get all sorts of pretty colours too. We re-inforce with terylene and use Terylene tape round the edges. We have 40,000 miles out of the sails and, although they are somewhat patched and repaired, we expect to get a good few thousand more from them. We made our own and you might have an uphill struggle persuading a sailmaker to use it.
We met a Colvin junk in the Virgin Islands who also had acrylic sails and was pleased with them. Incidentally, when in Nova Scotia we met Jim Creighton who fortuitously saw us sail into Baddeck and video’d the sequence. Beating in, at certain angles our sails were all but invisible, except for the yard and top panel. Very little twist, indeed and fairly high aspect ratio, too.
Instead of lacing our battens, we use straps either side of the sail, which works quite well. Like ‘Fenix’, we too are overweight by about 6”, but with two sails, and all controls led to one control position, we are not too keen on adding more lines. Nor would we like to reduce our sail area, because we feel that light air ability is very important for our type of cruising.
The last time we were in Falmouth we filled a ‘Jester’ type pram hood. Jock McLeod had been surprised that we didn’t have one, but our main reason had been that we really wanted an ‘astro-dome’ for a lockable hatch in harbour or severe weather, because a plywood one would have blocked out too much light. We came across a secondhand one and that decided us to go ahead. Having fitted it, we understand what Jock meant.
How ever did we manage without it? It’s the best thing since selfsteering and junk rig. In temperatures of 2°-3° on deck we kept 3 hour watches sheltered behind the pram-hood. Although we had the heater on, this was used more for an illusion of warmth so that if we had to stand up in the hatch to change sail, for example, we didn’t need to add too many layers of clothing. At 9°, it seemed cosy below. Anyway, we had hat and scarf on and usually gloves, but being sheltered from the shoulders down did not need to wear clammy oilskins for the watch period.
Going to windward, the hood can be adjusted to peer forwards and you can pop your head out between dollops of spray to look out to windward. For the sake of interest, we tried keeping look-out under the bubble, but didn’t like it at all. One’s visibility was reduced, hearing gone, sense of smell useless – as was the sense of touch.
Especially in fog, we use all our senses. ‘Blondie’ Hasler’s pram-hood is as brilliant and as useful for shorter handed sailors as his self-steering and junk rig.
With reference to a cruising chute. We had one and sold it – it was never used. Everyone keeps talking about the junk sail swinging about in a slop and light airs, but we are bound to say that we very rarely find it a problem in Badger.
When beating to windward in light airs and a slop, it is the waves that stop us – the sails are pretty docile. With the wind at all free she sails fine and we don’t recall it being a problem.
We’ve always believed in sailing in comfort – hence our choice of junk rig in the first place and leading all lines to the companionway. All in all, Jock and Blondie’s pram hood is absolutely superb and an immense improvement over being enclosed in a wheel house or under the bubble.
Annie & Pete