different lug sails

[aldebaran]

Hi all.

I´ve never sailed with a lug sail, but I´m considering using one for my 12 feet sail and oar design.

So, I´m choosing between a balanced lug sail and a standing lugsail with a boom, and I would like some experienced comments on these two sails.

Balanced: The advantage that I see is that the fact the boom extends in front of the mast, balances the sail and so it doesnt need a kicking strap in order to avoid twisting. Is that right?

Standing lug. I like that I can make a design with 2 mast steps. 1 for use with the main sail only and 1 for using with a small jib. My question is: since the boom doesnt extend in front of the mast, does it mean that the sail will twist and is it possible to use a kicking strap?

Thanks in advance
Anders

[Peerie Maa]

I'm not sure that balanced lugs are free of twist. Twist is caused by the horizontal component of sheet tension on the foot, which is absent from the peak. Same thing applies to both sails. It is true that a balanced lug does not need a kicker, if the spars are heavy enough to stand the leech tension needed to remove twist, and I'm not sure that any lug will be efficient enough to warrant one.

[Todd Bradshaw]

The basic configuration of a balanced lug makes it essentially self-vanging to a great extent. It swings more like a barn door than most sails will, and this prevents the tail of the boom from lifting and allowing much twist up high. This feature is both a major advantage of balanced lugs and at the same time, probably their biggest disadvantage.

Having fairly specific control over upper sail twist is a tool you can use to make your boat sail better, and twist can be just as desirable at certain times as it is undesirable at others. In moderate conditions, eliminating sail twist may be just what you need to keep the entire sail drawing and working for you. In heavy air when you are getting overpowered, being able to allow some twist, and allow the upper part of the sail to spill some excess wind, can greatly reduce the heeling force exerted on your boat and make controlling it a lot easier. It will also add some shock-absorbency to the rig in big gusts or puffy air. A standing lug, where you can have the ability to use and control twist better is usually a better heavy-air sail. This somewhat less forgiving nature of balanced lugs has also, historically, been one of the factors that seems to have limited their use on big boats, and to have spawned the development of quick and effective reefing systems on balanced-lug-rigged boats ranging from canoes upward in size. Some of the really huge old Chinese sailing vessles used what are essentially balanced lugs, but they also used unstayed masts that were built to flex to leeward in a puff as a depowering and shock-absorbing feature.

I doubt that there is really any easy way to quantify the differences and their effect for these two sail types for any given hull. Each may have certain advantages and limitations and the best thing you can do is be aware of their characteristics, know what sort of conditions you plan to sail in most of the time and make your choice. On most small boats, the final result is not likely to be a huge difference in usability of the boat, but may affect how you sail it.

And yes, any time you have a boomed sail that is not self vanging (which for small boats, is usually anything except boats with balanced lugs or sprit-booms) it's probably worth rigging some sort of simple vang/kicking-strap for twist control. Once the sail has been eased out to a certain point, the mainsheet will no longer be at an angle where it can contribute this control to the mix, so the vang can take over.

I'm personally not a big fan of jibs on unstayed masts due to the system's typical inability to generate sufficient headstay tension most of the time, but it would probably be somewhat better on a standing lug than on a balanced lug. Given the option, I'd generally rather put any additional sail area into a small mizzen, making a yawl-rig out of it, instead of a sloop. In addition to what will most likely be better sail shape, I really think yawl-rigs are interesting to sail with the steering, balance and boat control options that they bring to the party.

[obscured by clouds]

Thanks Todd. That was music to my ears.

I've been trying to fend off several 'friends' advice regarding the balanced vs standing lug set up - and the pro standing lug arguments were'nt been elucidated well enough by myself. Now they will be.

They too thought a balanced lug would be better because of the vanging aspect. I did'nt think that, and was heading down a fully battened standing lug route [and still will].

My arguments thus far were based on a comment by KeyhavenPotter which went something like ' dipping lugs are best, followed by standing and then balanced' .
This was all predicated on power and ability to windward...In fact he was less than complimentary about balanced lugs in general.

[opens can of worms. stands back]

[mizzenman]

I have been pondering the same question and someone came up with this one by John Welsford:

Should give you both vanging and no boom options.

[aldebaran]

Nice replys.

And certainly not what I had expected. From reading I also had the idea that the balanced lug was the best.

I think its very important that I sail is capable of twisting. Also in very light weather. In a dinghy its a way of letting excess air out and in somme racing dinghys, like the Europe, OK and the Finn its done by a flexible mast. You actually use a mast which is calibrated to your weight.

At the same time I like that twist is controlled and therefore I´ve always saild with a kicking strap.

So just a question: If you add a kicking strap to a standing lug, is the boom then pivoted on the mast or is it left "free" as on a balanced lug sail (sorry, I lack english words)

I to like a mizzen. I have sailed a classical yawl and know what a mizzen can do. But I find that 12 feet is a bit short for two masts...

[Peerie Maa]

Fit the boom with a gooseneck or jaws, or all the tension from tack downhaul and from the kicker acting through the boom will require a massive tack downhaul.

[aldebaran]

Sorry, could you please explain. I´m not to sure I understand.
To me a boom with jaws can be moved freely up and down the mast (like a gaff)
A gooseneck fixes the boom to the mast (no moving up and down.
Thats two very different things in my understanding, but I know that when it comes to lug sails I know very little.

[Peerie Maa]

Your standing lugsail is normally attached with a tack downhaul to a point just forward of the mast. Apart from the balance lug most lugsails are traditionally loose footed. The tack can go to the boom if you want. If it goes to the boom with a gooseneck bob's your uncle and the gooseneck looks after the trust of the kicker as well. If you use gaff jaws and a separate tack down haul, ensure that the boom at the tack is lower than at the clew (this looks nicer anyway), and fit a table to the mast to stop the boom end from dropping. If you fasten the tack to the boom you will also need a tack downhaul, but the kicker will serve this purpose. It really depends on whether you enjoy making things like boom jaws and leathering them, or want to buy a gooseneck fitting.

[aldebaran]

Thanks I got it.

I like making things in leather and wood, so I will go with the jaws.

BTW. There were a thread where Keyhavenpotterer showed how he had rigged his little dinghy scow.

I thought I had it in my favorites, but no.... Anyone knows where it is. A link,

Thanks
Anders

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

Years ago I experimented with a 9ft pram dinghy and balanced, standing and dipping lug rigs.

I decided in favour of the standing lug, but the next dinghy will have a Gunter rig.

[Osborne Russell]

Years ago I experimented with a 9ft pram dinghy and balanced, standing and dipping lug rigs.

I decided in favour of the standing lug, but the next dinghy will have a Gunter rig.

Why standing lug over balanced lug?

[David G]

Here's Michael Storer on balanced lugs and spritsails. If you want to explore his webside, there's more:

http://www.storerboatplans.com/Faq/t...rformance.html

You should also buy or borrow a copy of Phil Bolger's book, titled (something like) 103 Sailing Rigs.

Cheers,

[wtarzia]

I never liked that so much of the sail area ahead of the mast can go slightly aback in a balanced lug when the sail is windward of the mast, but people who know way more about these things than I say this condition is not really that bad. Nonetheless, I couldn't get over it, so I chose standing lugs for my outrigger sailing canoe (see them at www.wtarzia.com/outrigger). Todd recommended a yawl rig, and though I have a ketch rig (large and small standing lugs from the Wooden Boat Shellback and Nutshell kit boats), I agree.

The yawl or ketch rig has great features besides dividing sail area up to keep COE low (a good thing in itself). When launching in the face of the wind, I can paddle out straight and the sheeted in mizzen maintains my course until I am ready to go. This is good in shallow water if I need some distance to get to deeper water to set up the rudder. Or for a comfortable lunch: this week I sailed out a couple of miles into Long Island Sound, had fun, took a break for lunch riding to my mizzen. I also broke something in rough water -- again, I rode to mizzen while I made repair. Disadvantage (though a small one) = the mizzen is behind you sometimes (especially in calm conditions are you sail leaning back against the mizzen, day dreaming), so if not attentive you forget to set the mizzen in best form in relation to the main. At least I do ;-)

Since the mizzen of ketch rig sometimes is a 'power robber' except on reaches, possibly the yawl rig is better (smaller mizzen in relation to the main) while the yawl would maintain most of the mizzen's good function (I have not mentioned trimming for self-steerting, but then I do not self-steer much except in a long steady light wind).

Therefore I might modify to the extent of adding a small marconi mizzen (cut down from an old sail) and keeping my small lugsail as a heavy weather sail (54 sq ft large vs. 37 sq ft small); it might even be easier to keep the smaller sail ready to raise stowed inside, and instead of reefing, ride to that helpful mizzen (which I somethimes think of as a silent crew member in such times) drop large, raise small -- another advantage for a standing lug simplicity.

A jib might help in tacking and getting closer to the wind but right now the extra line and other necessities make me happy as is. The low center-of-effort of my two standing lugs lets me get to windward by a close reach, so I take more mileagle to get there, but I go very fast while doing so.

I have also asked about vangs for these sails but so far have done nothing about the issue because I have my outrigger crossbeams (akas) in the way of the right angle for a vang. However, Todd's analysis of sail twist is interesting here -- there are many times when I am going quite fast enough, and if choppy, too fast. My little outrigger canoe is pretty fast, so perhaps the sail twist is a safety feature and I should leave it be. When my bow is burying into the waves I tend to pinch up to brake, still making 4 mph progress. Monohulls will behave differently of course, and perhaps with their lesser stability the twist will be even more important? -- Wade

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

Why standing lug over balanced lug?

The boat definitely seemed to go better to windward, and the sail looks really ugly on the wrong tack.

[Osborne Russell]

What's needed is some same boat/same sailmaker/different rigs comparisons.

[Todd Bradshaw]

That's a nice thought, but it's a lot better in theory than it would be in practice. Even with a massive effort to keep things the same, there would still be so many variables in the equation that I doubt you would ever get any kind of meaningful information out of it. I doubt you could do any better than "With these two particular sails (not sail types, but those exact sails) on these particular spars, which exhibit "X" amount of bend, this hull performs better on this day in these conditions because it does______a little better......as long as _____ is sailing the boat, because he weighs "X" lbs. and tends to sheet/hike/ point/foot-off, etc. thusly. And the next day, in different weather, things might be quite different.

This type of situation still exists in modern America's Cup racing, even after throwing millions of dollars, the most high-tech materials and some very sophisticated computer work into trying to figure out the answers. For our purposes, identifying general trends related to the various sail types and making an educated guess is probably about the best we can do. The next step up the ladder is learning to sail against yourself, not a boat with a different rig. There is a certain satisfaction in just sailing the living crap out of a particular hull/sail/spars/rig over a long period of time and really learning what it needs in specific conditions. When we're talking about home-builts with one-off rigs, you may actually eventually become the best sailor on the planet in that particular boat. You learn to sail what you have and when it comes down to trying to nail down specifics between a couple of very similar rigs, there just aren't any perfectly clear answers. After all, it's sailing!....where everything is some sort of compromise and even if all you want to do is get over there....you'll still probably have to zig-zag back and forth......

[Osborne Russell]

I was thinking along the same lines the other night watching the movie "Il Postino" ("The Postman") which shows some Italian fishing boats 15 to 18 feet, double ended, nearly plumb stem and stern. Like a faering modified to carry an additional ton on the same length.

Lateen rig. Whatever it may give up in a particular performance area, the handling advantages of no boom, short mast, easy to brail up out of the work area, are decisive.

But for daysailing purposes, go ahead and make the spars with any degree of flexibility you choose. Any sheeting arrangments. Two boats, same sailmaker, same rigger. They go out in the same conditions.

What are the handling advantages of the standing lug? No downhaul, I guess. But balanced lug has no vang.

[Todd Bradshaw]

"But for daysailing purposes, go ahead and make the spars with any degree of flexibility you choose. Any sheeting arrangments. Two boats, same sailmaker, same rigger. They go out in the same conditions."

The problem in that there are a bunch of things in this statement that simply don't work or can't be done. The ideal spars for the two sails would likely have different flex and flex patterns - unless you can eliminate it entirely, which is pretty much impossible. The same is true with sheeting arrangements as they may be a major factor in spar bend and draft location and placement. The more you try to nail down all the details and make them the same, the more you start to understand that it can't be done in a meaningful manner that allows you to make any sort of real judgement about one type being better than the other.

"What are the handling advantages of the standing lug? No downhaul, I guess. But balanced lug has no vang."

All standing or balanced lugsails have something doing downhaul duty at all times, whether it's a tackle system or the halyard pulling against a connection between the sail's tack corner and the mast, boom, gooseneck, etc. Without it, you can't keep the sail peaked up properly. The most efficient method for both types is generally a dedicated tackle system, mostly because it's easier to adjust and more powerful than messing with the halyard tension to do it.

One advantage of a standing lug is its ability to be used either with or without a boom. Another is usually better luff tension. The tack of a standing lug is generally connected to something more solid than the tip of a boom floating out in space ahead of the mast, as it would be on a balanced lug. Also, the downhaul's pull is more straight up and down the luff. Especially on lugsails with long luffs, the ability to generate and maintain really good luff tension can be a fairly big performance difference.

As I mentioned before, standing lugs also provide greater ability to control sail twist and use it to your advantage - something that you won't have much, if any, control over with a balanced lug. Unfortunately, an awful lot of sailors don't seem to really understand a lot about twist and are simply bent on eliminating it. More often than not, sails which are over-trimmed up top seem to be the result. Learning to properly use a vang or a traveler often seems to be left out of a lot of basic sailing lessons.

An interesting side note is that when you start looking at modern, computer-designed sails, twist is one of the factors which is purposely planned into them. A high-aspect Marconi main will often have as much as 7-8 degrees of twist built into it, even when sheeted in hard, thanks to the computer brain's ability to quickly calculate and envision the true 3-D shape of the sail. This is something that us "loft on the floor and cut with a pair of sissors" sailmakers can't really do. If we could, we would be math geniuses and probably have real jobs instead. We take comfort in the fact that computers can't hand-sew rings worth a damn. The reason for this twist is that the wind itself is twisted up high. Windspeeds will be higher, and the aparent wind shifted slightly at the top of the mast, compared to down at boom level where the surface of the water is interfering with the wind to some extent. If our sail is parallel to the boom all the way up. there is a very good chance that its top is over-trimmed, and a little bit of twist can help by essentially easing the top a bit.

Obviously, on a 12' lug dinghy, the ability to use twist as a depowering/shock absorbing tool is usually going to be much more valuable than using it to get perfect trim to the aparent wind up top, but it's worth knowing the basics that are at work and knowing how to use twist to your advantage as sort of a first reef. The standing lug usually has a clear advantage in this particular aspect over a balanced lug. That being said, it's only one of several factors to consider when making your sail choice.

[aldebaran]

Thanks for your replys

I´m convinced. It´ll be standing lug. I´ve raced a lot and not having twist control I will not be able to accept. Sails without some twist look wrong to me and on a dinghy it can be the difference between capsizing or not and even though I´ve capsized many times it has been in racing dinghys designed for that. And besides I´m not in the mood for that anymore. Sailing has another purpose for me now.

Another thing: How about reefing. Its easily done on a balanced lug with downhalls to the boom. The standing lug will have a downhall to the boom at the back, but what is the best way to do it in the front, where I most probably will make a tack to the mast or if I use a gooseneck to that

[wtarzia]

What are the handling advantages of the standing lug? No downhaul, I guess. But balanced lug has no vang.

--- Not always true. I find a 2:1 downhaul useful to get the best sail tension, even on my small standing lugs, and others have too, who recommended downhauls to me. -- Wade

[wtarzia]

... Unfortunately, an awful lot of sailors don't seem to really understand a lot about twist and are simply bent on eliminating it. More often than not, sails which are over-trimmed up top seem to be the result. Learning to properly use a vang or a traveler often seems to be left out of a lot of basic sailing lessons...

Todd, would telltales help us determine if we have proper twist up there, or does the low-aspect ratio of a lug partly detract from the sensitivity of the tell-tales?

For anybody who has not done so.... get Marchaj's book, Sail Performance. It answers a LOT of questions and answers a lot more that you never asked ;-) Yes, it has math, but the text is well written enough to be worth it by itself, and though I am somewhat math-crippled, I could actually puzzle out enough of the math to make sense of most of it any way. Lots of helpful graphics and photos. I got a good deal in used book on Amazon.com for a hardcover. This book will keep you busy for years (as it does for me). And if you keep it on your coffee table, visitors will surreptitiously open it and be impressed with you if they do not dislike nerds. -- Wade

[slidercat]

I'm a balanced lug guy myself, mostly because I love the junk rig. In fact, I once put a junk rig on an 11 foot dinghy. It worked fine:



But one great advantage of the standing lug that I haven't seen mentioned is that you can use a kind of roller reefing. Matt Layden's brilliant little sharpie cruiser Paradox uses a system that furls around the boom as conveniently as a furling headsail. As the sail is set, a furling line loads up on a drum; to furl, you haul on the furling line and let out some halyard.

[wtarzia]

...But one great advantage of the standing lug that I haven't seen mentioned is that you can use a kind of roller reefing. Matt Layden's brilliant little sharpie cruiser Paradox uses a system that furls around the boom as conveniently as a furling headsail. As the sail is set, a furling line loads up on a drum; to furl, you haul on the furling line and let out some halyard.

--- Is his sail laced to the boom? Can you roller furl a standing lug too? In either case you would still have to shift the downhaul/tack, right? -- Wade

[Terry Haines]

Hi! a newbie here, great forum, had to join.

Ray, that junk rig and your notes on the Paradox reminds me of a rig I created for a cnoe about 10 years ago. Furling was done with a long roller on the boom. The gaff uphaul ran through a masthead block back down to the roller on the opposite side to the sail, to take up the slack when raising the sail, with provision for adding tension. The rectangular sail was mounted with 1/3 of its area before the mast, and the gaff and boom were offset so in light airs the sail did not press against the mast. On its first trip the mast snapped, a lesson in how much force can be generated by even a small sail. Performance was abysmal due to my lack of knowledge of how to use things like the ama which I insissted on keeping well in the water, but on one occasion she was flying along smoothly and silently. I looked around wondering what was different and observed the ama a foot clear of the water. later I realized that was what was supposed to happen; the whole thing was later lost fire but I want to resume experimenting with rigs when I finish building by small sailboat.

[Stu Fyfe]

Anders,
Check your Private Messages.

[Todd Bradshaw]

Yes, leech telltales work to indicate over-trimming up high and are almost always worth installing.

Designing the reefs for a standing lug is a bit more complex than it usually is for a balanced lug where you're just pulling down a slab to the ends of the boom. Due to the forward-raked angle of the luff on a standing lug, in normal full-sail conditions, your reef tack grommets are generally a couple inches forward of the regular tack fitting. As we lower the sail to tie-in the reef and bring the reef tack grommet aft a couple inches to meet the downhaul or tack fitting, it tends to rotate the entire sail a bit in profile. The head angle increases, peaking-up the yard a bit more and the aft end of the boom/sail-foot raises slightly. For a typical first reef, the amount of rotation needed to do this usually isn't enough to worry about or to make any sort of big change in the position of the sail's CE or balance. If your sail is a fairly tall one, the second reef may work just about the same, with only an additional slight increase in head angle.

For a lower-aspect standing lug, which often has more forward rake to it's full-sail luff angle, a healthy-sized reef may present a bit of a problem though, and the angle of the reef line may benefit from being adjusted. What happens is that as the big reef goes in and the peak and boom angles get even steeper, they still work OK, but at a certain point, the tail end of the boom begins to stick up in the air at a funky angle. To eliminate this, we can lower the aft end of the reef line. With full sail up, folks who aren't familiar with the concept may think your sailmaker was drunk when he installed the second line of reed points, but in practice it works pretty well.

Case in point. Here is a small standing lug. We wanted two generous reefs, yet we didn't want to mess with the position where the halyard ties to the yard when reefing, and we wanted reefing to make as little difference in the fore-and-aft position of the sail's Center of Effort as possible, so as not to screw up the helm balance. You can see on the first drawing how the reef tack grommets (marked B and C) are forward of the normal tack grommet (A). Grommet C is way out in front of the mast because we wanted such a big second reef. By the time that reef is put in, we have reefed out nearly the entire luff and the sail is starting to look more like a lateen than a lug. When the reef tack grommets are brought aft and put to use, the sail rotates a bit in profile and the yard peaks up more. The rather unusual angle for the second reef line is designed to bring the boom angle back down to something reasonable when the second reef is being used. This is a pretty extreme case, but notice how little the fore-and-aft location of the CE moved in drawing #4, despite massive changes in sail area.



Most standing lug reefing configurations aren't this extreme, but the same principles are still going on to a lesser extent and it's worth doing a little bit of careful drawing and planning before you start cutting fabric. The finished sail turned out like this when hoisted on a mast made from my roof rake handle. and there is a PDF with the rigging details that went out with it located here: (mainsheet and downhaul systems were minimal on this one because it's such a small sail for use on a canoe).

http://webpages.charter.net/tbradshaw/STLUG3.PDF

[slidercat]

Wade, the tack on Paradox is a kind of articulated device that swings from side to side. It's built out of soldered copper tubing, if i remember correctly. I can't lay my hands on them at the moment, but I have the plans. I never intend to build a Paradox, but the plans are worth the modest cost ($35.00 I think) just as an illustration of an extremely inventive mind at work.

At any rate, there's no shifting of the tack-- possible because it's a standing lug.

The Paradox lug is a somewhat awkward looking sail when reefed, but from all accounts, it works very well.



Because Paradox is so small and has no cockpit, and very narrow side decks, you don't want to have to go forward to reef.

Glen Maxwell built one of the prettiest Paradoxes, Zoe. He's got a very nice page on Zoe and a couple cruises he's taken. Here's a pic of his roller reefing:



Check out Glen's page:

http://home.windstream.net/ifida/hom...net_000001.htm

[wtarzia]

Paradox -- a compelling boat as ever (though I keep looking for a way to sit outside, i.e., a way to shorten the cabin aft 18 inches for a micro outside-cockpit -- I am old fashioned). The roller-reefed Paradox sail looks like some of those Pacific/Indonesian rectanglualr sails that can also be roller-reefed though they stand at a far more aesthetic-looking (and useful, I hope) angle. Tim Severin used them in one of his later boats, in his book about Alfred Wallace's biotic explorations (sadly, he said very little about the boat). I wonder if the reefed Paradox sail could be more 'stood up' and still be useful. I know it is supposed to work that way, but, ye gods, it looks painful. -- Wade

[wtarzia]

I have a set of reef points on my commercial main lug, but not at that angle by far. I like the one you show -- seems as if it would be more tidy in a stiff wind than the shape I would be left with if I reefed the Shellback sail. --Wade

[aldebaran]

Todd, thanks a lot for the very nice and ilustrative explanation of reefs

[riant]

I'd just like to sing the praises of the boomless lug sail. Nigel Irens Romilly http://www.roxane-romilly.co.uk/ , in its original form, has no boom. The full width sail battens provide sufficient stiffness to allow the main sail to be reefed simply with reef knots hanking the sail up. This is very simple and works a treat. You also have the benefit that there's nothing heavy to clunk you on the head.

The strip pine version has a boom but the sail is still reefed in much the same way.

Cheers

Phil

[alkorn]

I sail a 12 ft. skiff with a balanced lug, a Stevenson Triad which was designed for a lateen rig. I went to balanced lug to get more sail area without longer spars. On a lateen the longest spar is not the mast, but the yard, and it gets really long for a large sail.

To me, the big safety factor on my rig is the fact that it is unstayed. The mast doesn't bend much, but in a worst-case gust I can just let go of the sheet and let the sail run downwind.

My only capsize was when I (foolishly) tried to tack with the sheet cleated down.