Beneteau 423 Rig Conversion

Now that weve had the boat for a couple of weeks and Ive been able to dig deeper into the systems and construction of the Finisterra and Im able to start putting together a serious to-do list. Our purpose is to outfit the boat for long distance cruising so the number one item on the list is to lose the in-mast furling system. There are two basic ways to go about this. The easiest is to simply pull the roller furling main out of the mast, put slides on it and run it up the luff groove that is built into the mast. The other option is to chuck the entire roller furling (RF) mast and sail, and buy a new rig. Of course there are a few options between those two extremes, but they arent worth talking about.

Beneteau 423 close reaching under a 140% jib and RF main

After pondering the alternatives and doing the math, we chose to go all the way and put a new rig in the boat. Youre probably wondering why someone would take a perfectly good rig out of a boat and exchange it for something that is usually more work to set trim and douse. My answer is that RF mains work well for many things, but they can fail in ways that could be inconvenient at best and dangerous in some circumstances. They also cant deliver the performance that a full battened main can. In terms of danger, all you have to do is visit the B423 message board to read about a range of problems people have had with their RF main sails. Sails jammed in the slot, batten pockets torn, more jammed sails, maintenance issues on the furling system, etc. Dont misunderstand me, most B423 owners seem to love their RF main sails and have very few problems with them. But if youre planning for offshore cruising to remote places with a shorthanded crew, you want your rig to be 100% manageable in all conditions. So its out with the furling rig.

As it turns out, we can do the conversion for a very reasonable price if we manage it well. US Spars, the company that built the original B423 rigs happens to have some mast extrusions left over from the production days, and agreed to build a new classic rig for us at a very attractive price. We found a local rigger here in SoCal who will take the old rig on consignment and we can surely sell the sail at Minneys, our local marine surplus store. So with the new rig, modifying the boom and buying a new mainsail, I estimate that the entire project will cost around $15.000.

423 with classic main and stackpack

We will include a Battcar system, lazyjacks and a Stackpack to make sail handling easy. With full battens the sail falls neatly into the pack, eliminating the whole flaking exercise. More importantly, the sail can be reliably reefed in all conditions. Ill keep you posted on the progress for this project.

Mainsail neatly stowed. 

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A new rig for a Goat Island Skiff Spruce for Roger Longs Yawl Dory and more Birdsmouth Masts and Spars

The finished mast and spars delivered and stepped into John Goodmans Goat Island Skiff Yawl #1 in Houston, TX. John does the Texas 200 in a few weeks!

To find good spruce you need to go right to the source. I enjoyed some wonderful walking with a customer who is having a Yawldory by Roger Long, N.A., built and wanted the Spruce for the spars, masts, and oars (my job) to come from her friends land. We walked (i.e., bushwacked) and tagged a few nice Spruce trees.

 

Birdsmouth Masts under construction for a Michael Storer Goat Island Skiff. With Michaels blessing, Clint drew a yawl rig for the boat.

 

Varnishing the Sitka Spruce/Northern White Spruce Birdsmouth mast allows the grain of the Sitka to deepen and develop the contrasting lighter-colored Northern White Spruce. You get some of the benefits of Sitka for half the cost by mixing it with the local spruce we get hear in Maine and Canada.

The two masts are for the Goat Island Skiff, a birdsmouth on the left and a hollow-rectangular mast on the right. The mast on right is a customers that I took in to check for chafing and leathered the chafed areas to prevent more.

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Videos Showing Details of Phoenix III Balance Lug Rig

During a recent visit from Paul Hernes (builder of the first Phoenix III) I was able to take a number of still and video shots of the details of the balance lug rig on Pauls Phoenix III.

This was my first ever attempt at video filming and editing, so please be patient with the results. However, you may find some of the clips to be worthwhile as they do show how well the boat has been developed by Paul over the years. Here they are: -

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A pretty unsuitable rig and post 2222

Man do I have a bridge to sell this rube, a chart you really need to look at, and in the "do you know where you can stick that fucking iPhone" department...

The other day I was looking at a local Hunter selling for cheap and thinking it was a lot of bang/living space for the buck...

Hunter 34

That said, the rig is simply nuts for a cruising boat and looking at it I really had to admire the JPD (just plain dumb) mindset that made it happen but it left me with the nagging question why the heck is the mast so high (over 50 feet from the water line) for 569 square feet of sail area?

Heres the thing, tall masts, their required rigging, and added needful ballast are all expensive... Not something you tend to expect in a Hunter.

CAL 34 Simplicity rig

Back when "So It Goes" was dismasted and I had to build a new rig I went with the Simplicity rig that Mark Smaalders was working on at the time. Part of the reason I chose it was that it allowed for 592 square feet of sail area on a mast no longer than the CAL 34.


Its a powerful rig and the resulting boat is stiffer, sails more upright, and cost a far sight less than replacing the original CAL 34 rig. I call that a win/win/win situation. The Simplicity rig is a great cruising rig.

The Hunter 34 on the other hand has a deserved reputation as being a boat that is tender, sails on its ear, and a bit too exciting for some folks tastes. Practical Sailor in its excellent  review of the Hunter 34 has this to say...

"There is a price to be paid for that speed, however. A number of owners responding to our survey report that the original Hunter 34 is a very tippy boat, in either the deep keel or shoal draft version. In winds of 15 knots true or more, it’s time to reef the main when going upwind. In fact, the boat’s lack of stability is the single most commonly criticized aspect of the Hunter 34’s performance in our survey. One owner was considering cutting several feet off his mast. Others have stepped down from 150% headsails to 135% or smaller overlaps."

Throw in the aft cant spreaders (every sailmakers wet dream) that makes sailing downwind seriously problematic and you have a pretty horrible cruising rig sitting on top of a pretty nice cruising boat...

Of course, one could always replace such a rig with something like the Simplicity, gaff, or (dare I say it?) a balanced lug rig for a fraction of the cost and youd have a real honest to goodness cruising rig that wont cost an arm and a leg in breakage and sail repairs.

Just a thought...

Listening to Bobby Brown

So it goes...

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Why the Yawl Rig for the Goat Island Skiff or for any boat

I am asked this a lot and wanted to put something together to answer this and other questions. I added the mizzen to the GIS because I wanted a boat for myself that would be easier to singlehand on longer excursions and for use in sail-and-oar events such as the Small Reach Regatta, the Texas 200, and other RAID events like the Shipyard School Raid and Sail Caledonia. Many, many of the boats you see in these events have a mizzen.

For my own use of the GIS, a mizzen is needed for a variety of reasons:

1) to hold the boat into the wind while the sail is raised, lowered, or reefed while singlehanding or sailing with my kids.
2) to hold the boat into the wind while rig is unstepped and stowed and oars are rigged for rowing
3) to be able to hold the boat to windward or to heave-to while underway for taking short breaks to move people, re-stow gear, or go to the bathroom with out getting blown off course.
4) to be able to back off docks and beaches and control steering in tight spaces
5) to be able to tune the weather helm felt by the helmsman by trimming the mizzen

Other FAQs

Is the designer aware of your changes to the Goat Island Skiff?
Yes, I have a great working relationship with Michael Storer whom I consider a friend. He and I correspond often and he has OK-ed the addition of the mizzen and trusts that I will design and build the new rig so that it fits in with the concept of the GIS. For example, all pains will be taken so that this addition adds very little weight to the boat. The mizzen mast will be a lightweight, birdsmouth mast.

Is the lug sail the same and is it stepped in the same place or how has the lugs position been adjusted for the new mizzen?
I have designed new sail rigs for boats before, for dories actually. After drawing the new rig, finding the new center of effort (CE) of the added sail area, and moving things around, the new CE and old CE are in the same place such that the centerboard does not need to be changed. In the GIS, the lug is the same standard sail (105 SF) and it will step in a secondary partner/step forward of bulkhead #1. It turned out that the lug needs to be moved forward only 9" keeping things tied into the bulkheads for structural integrity and simplicity. The original mast step is retained so the boat can be sailed with or without the mizzen. The GIS Yawl is is still the usual standard GIS, but with an added mizzen. You can take the boat out with more flexibility in rig choice.

Has one been built and how well does it work?
I expect to have a GIS Yawl on the water this summer, my personal boat, but orders for sail rigs and boat kits may prevent that from happening. However, one kit is going to a customer who will be doing the yawl and plans to be sailing this summer in the Texas 200. I have no doubt that the boat will go as well as the standard, upwind and downwind, but with the added benefits of the mizzen for RAIDs and sail0and-oar type of use. If the mizzen is not needed, leave it ashore and use the Goat as the standard lug-only arrangement.

You can learn more about How to Use the Yawl Rig in my blog post.

or the Goat Island Skiff page on my website.

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