Skerry: Gunter or Lug

Any thoughts on which of these rigs is preferable and under which conditions? I'd probably say that I value performance to windward over ease of handling. 


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RE: Skerry: Gunter or Lug

   I'm very curious also: these weeks in the process of building a Skerry and am stil thinking what rig to use. I'm leaning towards a balanced rig as a good compromise between rowing, ease of handling and setting up. I'm intending to use the boat for daysailing at small lakes and some overnight touring in canals ( with locks and bridges). 

RE: Skerry: Gunter or Lug

 

   Ha! On other boat forums (Tartan), the onset of cold weather in the northern hemisphere always brings first the winterizing threads, then the "varnish wars" about which varnish if any is better for what.  Great fun.  :-)

I got the lug rig for mine, with the reef option in the sail (it may be standard now).  The skerry hull is so slippery and easily driven that the lug sail area is more than enough to move it nicely in anything above a whisper, and definitely reef if it's even thinking of blowing a loose hat off your head.  The gunter rig is even more sail area.  So for sail area, unless you are a recovering Laser sailor who installs hiking straps, either is plenty of power.

I'll bet the gunter, properly set, will outpoint the lug most times, but I'm finding that until you can get some water speed over the daggerboard, you mostly make leeway unless you build speed first and then point up, so technique may be more important than rig alone.  I'm coming from keel sloop rigs, so I'm still learning.

The gunter requires setting up shrouds, not too much work, but more than just stepping the mast in the hole.  Although, I also put in a set of mast wedges after I plunk the mast in the hole, so even w/ the lug there's a bit of stuff.

The lug rig, being one big sail mostly behind the mast, can develop enough weather helm to overpower the rudder in stiff breeze going downwind (thus the need to reef).  The gunter, with a small jib, may be more balanced downwind in a blow.  Choices, choices.   :-)

RE: Skerry: Gunter or Lug

   Let the lug wars begin!  :-)

RE: Skerry: Gunter or Lug

If you mean to switch between sailing and rowing, as I would assume would be necessary in "overnight touring in canals with locks and bridges", you'd be much happier with the lug.  Not only is it simpler, but it's easy to bundle the sail and yards out of the way for taking up the oars quickly.

My experience with a lug-rigged Passagemaker Dinghy would suggest that the lug doesn't give up as much pointing ability to the gunter rig as many folks think.  If the sail is well shaped (Doug Fowler's are splendid) and well set (it's all about getting correction tension on the sail between the upper and lower yards), I've found my Passagemaker to be very weatherly.  Maybe the reason many think the lug is not weatherly is that it is easier to set the sail badly so that it acts like a bedsheet on broomsticks.  With the gunter, it may be more obvious what you need to do to get good sail shape--almost impossible to have a baggy luff on the main, and everybody knows that insufficient luff tension on the jib will kill windward performance.  Maybe not so obvious with the lug.

....Michael

RE: Skerry: Gunter or Lug

   I went with the gunter rig on my Skerry mainly because I wanted to get experience handling two sails. I have found that the extra sail area helps when sailing in light breezes as I typically do. Another advantage of the gunter rig is that it provides more sail carrying options. When the wind picks up, I can drop the jib. When it picks up even more, I have a set of reef points on the main that I can use. If I am am going downwind, I can use the jib alone. Also, backwinding the jib helps to bring the bow around in a tack. The Skerry, being so lightweight, can be difficult to tack in wind and chop. On the downside, the gunter rig does take a while to set up. It usually takes me about 35-45 minutes to get the boat rigged and ready to sail.

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