For all the reasons that you outline, running the halyard and downhaul aft is a really good idea.  The picture below is how I did that on my GIS.  I added turning blocks on each side of the mast and then cam cleats on the aft edge of the forward seat.  I made both the halyard and downhaul a little long so that the tails are long enough to run aft of the middle seat.  That way I can either uncleat (by pulling upward) or cleat (by pulling downward) from behind the middle seat.  I am not sure if the Skerry has enough room on the front seat aft of the mast to make this work.

   Thank you for your feedback and the picture, Mark. I wouldn't be able to use the front seat for the cleats, but I will surely consider the rest of your setup as a design. Does exactly as I had in my head. I never thought of a loop around the mast on the boom to keep it under control during raising and lowering. It usually winds up heading directly overboard as soon as the halyard goes slack. I assume the yard has this loop as well? I'll need to look up the nautical term for these "loops" so I can speak intellegently in the future.

Taking it one step at a time, I will bring the halyard and downhaul back to the center seat. Next, give some thought to lazy jacks to keep everything in the boat while in transition. Not ready for that complexity yet.

I must say Mark. That is one pretty piece of work you have there. 

parrel - from OED: /ˈpɛr(ə)l/  "A sliding band of rope or metal attaching a spar or sail to a mast while allowing it vertical movement."

.....Michael

Sightseer, Michael is correct, that the line that holds the spar to the mast is generally called a parrel. 

In the case of a Goat Island Skiff, that line is called a Bleater because its primary purpose is to keep the boom from moving forward.  If you look at the first picture, you will see that the "downhaul" is attached to the boom well aft of the mast.  That way, when tightened it tensions both the luff and the leach of a sail. (Most downhauls are attached to the boom abeam of the mast).   In other words, it is half downhaul and half boomvang.  I prefer the term "vanghaul" over downhaul.  When the vanghaul is tightened, it tries to pull the boom forward so you loop a Bleater around the mast and tie to the front of the boom to hold boom in the forward/aft position that you want  In the picture, the Bleater is the white line with blue flecks that loops around the boom, goes on the stbd side of the mast and is tied to the cleat on the front of the boom.  When things are tightened up, the Bleater does hold the boom close to the mast like a parrel does  It may sound complicated but it works very well, and allows you to get exactly the mount of luff and leach tension that you want.

On the Goat, a parrel is not needed for the yard because of the way the main halyard is rigged.  The halyard is tied to the forward end of the yard via a hole and stop knot.  The halyard then runs up/aft, around the mast then through a block lashed to the yard before to goes through the mast head and down.  As soon as the halyard is tentioned, the halyard itself acts like a parrel.  Again, hard to explain but it is easy, cheap and works well.  

If you really want to improve the performance of your lug, I would advise reading through the following page.  Micheal Storer is probably the number one performance expert regarding the free sttanding lug.  https://www.storerboatplans.com/category/tuning/lug-rig-setup/

Sightseer:

I think the first thing I'd try, given your situation, would be to get a kayaker's drogue to rig from the bow to keep your Skerry headed into the wind and slow her drift while you are fussing about with the sail in brisk wind.  Stay down low in the boat as you move forward, and don't come any closer to the mast than necessary.

The main trick I've found with the very similar lug sail on my PMD is to raise and lower the sail as quickly as possible.  Best thing is to drill it ashore or tied to the dock or anchored until you can do it quickly.  Before hoisting, I rig the downhaul in its approximate position first, so that I can hoist the sail quickly to get some tension on the luff as soon as possible, pulling the halyard (passed under its cleat) hand over hand until somewhat taut.  The longer the sail hangs there partly hoisted, the more time it has to turn into a mad kite from hell and start dragging you off to your doom.  Once you have good tension on the sail between the upper and lower yards, it should weathercock so as to spill most of the wind while you make final adjustments.

In lowering the sail, I'll get all the turns off the halyard cleat but then keep it nipped off under the cleat with one hand to keep the sail firmly hoisted, pick my moment, and then start pulling the sail down and into the boat for all I'm worth with the other hand, keeping the halyard under tenssion as it slips through my fingers.  If you get the lower yard down and into the boat quickly, and then pull down handfuls of sail as quickly as you can until you can grab the upper yard and pull it into the boat, you've got a good chance of getting the whole business tamed before the wind has much of a chance to get up devilment with it.  You can sorta use your hand holding the halyard, as it slips through your fingers under tenssion, to help muzzle the sail as you go.

I imagine my PMD is much more stable than your Skerry with my weight forward like that, so maybe this wouldn't work as well for you, hard to tell until you try it.

.....Michael

   Thanks to you guys for the education and direction. This was my first year with the Skerry after teaching myself to move about with the wind in the Eastport I built a couple of years ago. I am finding that the Skerry is a completely different boat. 

Looking forward to putting the help you provided into practical use in the spring. Will have to content myself with cleaning up the Eastport running gear in preperation to sell in the spring.Two boats, one trailer. The Eastport will get unfairly neglected. 

Based upon your statement after teaching myself to move about with the wind, I will make the assumption that you taught yourself to sail.  If that is the fact, I would strongly recommend that you get some lessons.  Without some instruction from somebody with some skill and experience, you will never be better than a mediocre sailor.  

   You are correct, Mark. I have been applying book learned sailing techniques to practical directly with no formal instruction. Often with predictable (or unpredictable) results. I've been able to stay dry so far though.  

Looked at a few schools here in Connecticut and found that courses cost more than my boat. Seems that learning to sail is a rite of passage for the offspring of the wealthy here on the "Gold Coast". 

Yeah, you need to find a "Not Quite Yacht Club Material Yacht Club" somewhere nearby, where you could get to know some...how can I say this kindly?...less gold plated sailors to help you along.  Are you familiar with the Traditional Small Craft Association (TSCA)?  If they have a chapter near to you, that might be a good way to meet some folks with lots of experience messing about in boats more like your Skerry.

.....Michael

   Hello all, I'm new to the forum and wooden boats, but I'm about to start on a Skerry in the next couple of days. I've really been contemplating what rig to go with. I'm not that familiar with traditional rigs, but this thread has been very informative. All I know is the Bermuda Rig and so, keep leaning toward the Gunter option. That aside...

Sightseer, I attempted to take sailing lessons while living in New Haven. Similarly to you I came up short in finding an affordable option. I ended up moving to New York City, and as Michael suggested, I hooked up with TASCA in Queens. I can't say enough positive things about this organization. The one problem for you though, is that it would be quite a hike to take classes with them.

It's good to hear that there is a sailor close by with a Skerry (I now live in Western Massachusetts, but fish and plan on sailing in the Sound).

Thanks again everyone for the lively thread. I'm looking forward to reading and learning more.

Tim

���There seem to be a number of skerry and NED boats near the Sound. I moved up from the Chesapeake but am starting to learn the area. I've sailed MD and VA for years. CT has some nice lakes, but IMO, learning down on the shore means more consistent breeze which is good when learning. Maybe in the warm weather, skerry and other new CLC sailors in the LI Sound area can find a spot to splash boats and learn a few tricks from each other.

Tim:

The Skerry is a lovely boat.  I'll put in a plug for the lug here.

First, a balanced lug like this is a very practical arrangement for a small boat meant to be rowed as much as she's sailed.  No standing rigging (shrouds or stays), short spars, simple running rigging (at least in small sizes), and the yards and sail are easily bundled up and cleared away so as not to interfere with rowing.  It is child's play to set or strike the short mast.  In my PMD (lug similar to the Skerry's lug option), the mast is just a bit longer than the boat, but not difficult to secure out of the way for rowing.  We could have an even shorter mast with a similarly sized spritsail (such as the original, I believe, Skerry rig), but that is otherwise a less handy arrangement than the lug and, in my limited experience with spritsails, one never seems to be done setting up the peak sprit snotter.

Second, a well-set balanced lug pulls like a mule, with the center of the sail area down low to the boat relative to other choices.  The "well-set" business is the trick here.  Since the rig has not been as common here in the U.S. as elsewhere in the world, the fine points of getting the best out of the sail are perhaps not as well understood as with more common rigs, such as the gaff rig, gunter, or various varieties of jib-headed, Bermudian, Marconi, pointy mainsail sloops which are so ubiquitous.  It's all about getting the attachments for halyard and downhaul located in the sweet spots on the yards and then being able to get appropriate tension over the sail between the upper and lower yards to get the best shape in the sail.  This may take a bit of experimenting.  (That's why, on our PMD, halyard and downhaul are attached to little loops lashed to the yards so they could be shifted as I fined tuned the thing over time.)

Third, it is hard to beat a balanced lug for straightforward reefing which results in a well-shaped sail for resetting, with as little rigging left standing above the reefed sail to create unhelpful windage.

Finally, I don't think the reputation of the lug rig as being substantially less weatherly than other possibilities is as well deserved as commonly thought.  A poorly cut or set sail of any sort will expose all its faults when trying to get upwind.  After all, any bonehead in a bathtub with bedsheets on broomsticks can sail downwind; it's the upwind work that separates the broomsticks from the spars, the bedsheets from the sails, the bathtubs from the sailboats...and the boneheads from the sailors!  If the sail isn't cut by a sailmaker who understands the rig (Doug Fowler's sails as supplied by CLC are superb!), it may not perform well, especially to windward.  Getting good windward performance out of a lug sail is all about getting a taut luff (tricky, since it is not attached to a spar) without getting an over-taut leech in the bargain, and keeping good tension across the sail so it doesn't go baggy and start looking more like a bedsheet on broomsticks.  As the wind strength increases, it is important to increase the downhaul tension to (1) counteract the increased pressure on the sail and (2) introduce a bit of flex in the yards so as to flatten the sail out somewhat.  The mast is a pure compression post, and must be very stiff for all this to work, since things will go baggy if it flexes too much.

When I've got all this working correctly in our PMD, she will make 4.0 to 4.5 knots hard on the wind (45 degrees or maybe a bit more) when it's blowing something over 10 knots (just short of needing the first reef), pretty much headed where she's pointed, i.e., not making excessive leeway.  Will she point with an E Scow with her high-tension rigging humming like a giant harp?  Heck, no, but it ain't bad for an eleven and a half foot rowboat with...what?...maybe a nine foot waterline and a low-tech-is-go-tech rig.

When we chose the lug rig for our PMD, we were thinking of the sailing as being auxiliary to the rowing, not the other way 'round, so we were willing to trade some upwind sailing performance, if that was the case, for keeping the boat clear for rowing.  We didn't expect her to be a dog, by any means, but we were very pleasantly surprised by how well she sails to windward.

For small boats meant both to row and to sail well, I am now a confirmed "lug nut" for sure.

.....Michael

   Michael, thank you so much for the detailed explaination. I'm sold on the lug. More than anything I'm excited to learn to sail a different rig. At the wooden boat show in CT a few years ago I sailed a little gaff rigged dinghy and it was a blast! 

I copied your response and put it in a doc for safe keeping.

My plans came in yesterday and I've been preping the shop all weekend to make room for the fun. Off to the plywood shop tomorrow!

Thanks again for taking the time to respond. It helped.

I assume I'll need some more help from the folks here in the future...so, thanks in advance.

I'll document the build somehow and try to make a video. I did it with my last project (a Com-Pac 16) and it added to the fun. Although I am no videographer! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72zNYOAWKkk

Tim

Nice job of bringing that ComPac 16 back from the dead, Tim.  If you can manage something like that without hangin' yourself in despair, you ought to be able to do just about anything.  I wish you all joy of your boatbuilding!  Merry Christmas!

.....Michael

Same to you and your family Michael. And thanks again for the sage advice.

I will follow your rigging set up as closely as I can. Thanks for including the pictures into this thread. I'll try to aviod using synthetic backingplates for the hardware, but it'll be tough...I really have a soft spot for G-10.

Tim   

Tim:

Those photos above are of Mark's Goat Island Skiff with her 105 sq. ft. sail, quite a bit bigger than the 62 sq. ft. Skerry lug, similar (identical) to the one on our Passagemaker.  As balanced lug sails get better, we need more rigging to manage them, until it gets to a point where we've got slings to suspend the heavy lower yard to the point where we might start calling it a boom, parrels on both upper and lower yards, topping lifts and lazy jacks on the lower yard, and maybe even a peak topping life on the yard it if shows a tendency to go peak-down in a menacing way when the halyard is slacked off.  At some point, we might begin to wonder if a gaff sail wouldn't be more manageable without any more spaghetti.

Better than my remarks above, you might ought to read John's piece here:

https://www.clcboats.com/life-of-boats-blog/lug-nuts-lug-rigs.html

Good stuff.

Here is a link:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/bai86cb03j1hrdo/AADslGFOVsKHnp1-TGJiU1bfa?dl=0

...to a Dropbox folder with some photos of our PMD, some of which show details of how the rigging evolved.  In the root folder there is a PDF document with descriptions of the photos.  The folder "1080 High" has reduced megabittage versions of the photos suitable for viewing on a computer, tablet, or whatever other HD device you might use without choking your internet connection.  The folder "Large Sized" holds the full sized (from various different cameras) versions which might be useful for zooming in on detail.  Might be worth a look if you don't mind wading through the family stuff to get to the pertinent stuff.  The only thing I've changed much since is the way the two-part downhaul is rigged.  I now pass the end of the line from forward to aft through the thimble, rather than from aft to forward as shown in one of those pictures toward the end, to tie it off at the cleat so that I can pull aft on the downhaul with a tuck under the cleat as I set it up--better purchase than pulling straight down and then trying to get a nip under the cleat without losing anything.

Let me know if you have any questions or if that Dropbox business gives you any trouble.

.....Michael

I meant to say, "As balanced lug sails get bigger..." not "better".  Bad case of squirrel brain today.

.....Michael

I thouroughly enjoy going back and re-reading this thread each time a new input gets posted. Part education, part inspiration and not without a good dose of humor (Thanks Gramps).

I'm currently sitting in the partial darkness due to an ice storm, the generator humming in the distance, wishing for spring to put some of my new found knowledge to work. Alas, the boat lives outside under the deck, wrapped up in sleep till warmer weather. Finished(?) last winter, the Skerry out of the basement leaves me with no "me" project this winter. Much to my spouse's glee. Her long awaited craft room makeover now #1 priority. I guess that technically it is a project.....  

I like the idea of a local Southern New England gathering for the coming season. I have done most of my sailing on Bantam Lake in Litchfield county here in Connecticut. Decent size lake, free ramp, but lake sailing and finicky wind it is. On the right day it is lots of fun. Others it is "row back to the ramp" frustration. I used to go to Mystic harbor before the ramp by the Museum was closed to trailers. No inexpensive launch points with easy access to open water here in Coastal Connecticut. Out of towners pay dearly for living inland.

I often thought that the Connecticut river might be an option. I have not researched any launch site along the river yet. Anyone have ideas?

I don't know what to tell you about the lack of public ramps to Connecticut salt water.  Have you tried looking here;

https://www.ct.gov/deep/cwp/view.asp?a=2686&q=589602&deepNav_GID=1620

...or has the waterfront gotten so expensive up there that the folks who own it think they own the water, too?

Have you tried beach launching?  Are there less expensive (free?) places you could do that?  You probably need the trailer to get to the site (anybody out there actually cartop a Skerry?), but, if you can get the boat off onto a dolly and wheel her down to the water, then disconnect the trailer and park it next to your vehicle, that might be another option.  We've done this with our Passagemaker (about the same weight, using the heavy-duty dolly from CLC), but out of the back of a pickup truck instead of with a trailer.  Indoor-outdoor carpet laid over pavement or rough ground helps.

Other'n that, maybe you should think of moving to North Carolina?  We've spent a lot of time around Beaufort and Morehead City (Carteret County - Cape Lookout area) over the years, a place we discovered thanks to information provided in NC's Coastal Boating Guide, formerly a printed map, now available online here:

https://www.ncwildlife.org/boating/boaters-guides

The ramps are free.  Okay, yes, North Carolina may also have you spending time on the generator due to hurricanes, but you won't be shovelling snow afterward!  <;-)

.....MIchael

   Michael, thanks for the clarification and the dropbox link. The picutes look great! Big thanks. And I read John's Lug Nut article before...it's a cup of koolaid that I'm pretty willing to drink.

To "No inexpensive launch points with easy access to open water here in Coastal Connecticut. Out of towners pay dearly for living inland.",

I also love the idea of a southern NE meet up. I may be meeting up with a shell of a boat only, but like you I am building my wife an art studio (that makes my shop look like a playhouse) and it's really getting in the way of my own project(s), I won't even mention my 4 month old. She can't get anything done by herself...kids these days.

Two launches that I love using in CT are Brandfords town launch (free) and Guilfords (really cheap). Also, although this may be too far of a hike for you, Rhode Island has so many free awesome launches.

As far as the CT river goes, I'm really hoping to explore it more this summer. I live about 2 miles from a ramp in the Pioneer Valley, but it's $20 to launch.

BUT

There is a free launch in Hatfield and one in Northapton, both on the west side of the river. Both ramps are fine enough and parking is usually not an issue. Out of the two, Hatfield would make for better sailing. But I personally would turn the car south and head to Guilford.

Tim