Junk Junkies

[johnh94927]

Any Junk junkies out there? I just returned from a trip to Hong Kong and Macao and had a chance to at least see a sailing junk tied up at the wharf of the Macao Maritime Museum. Beauty boat - will post pix if I can.
Anyone have any info on these vessels, or this vessel?
Also saw "pink" dolphins in the Pearl River estuary - Indo-Pacific humpback dolphins, whose skin grows lighter with age.
Junks - any info appreciated.
// john

[Mike Field]

Junk? You want junk? Plenty in my workshop, John, and you're welcome to all of it.

[ptrrd]

There is a bunch of junkies getting high over at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/junkrig.

Not much talk about junk hulls, but plenty about the rig, with some weblinks as well.

Tom Colvin seems to be an authority on the hulls. Do a search for thomasecolvin to get to his website.
Peter

[WX]

I'm in Brisbane at the moment, been buying new wet weather gear and lifejacket for my pcoming trip down to Sydney. Anyway I was over Breakfast Creek way and noticed 2 Junkrigs, one was a white Colvin Schooner and the other was a green hulled single stick rig, design unknown. Anyone know anything about them?
She's gusting to around 20+ knots on the Bay...so we may, or may not go out tomorrow.

[JimD]

Sure, theres a few of us junk junkies around here. A couple favourite links with some info on them:

http://www.friend.ly.net/~dadadata/junks.html
http://www.friend.ly.net/~dadadata/junk/platt/platt_chinese_sail.html

Google is your friend. Just type in Chinese junk rig.

http://www.timedesign.de/ship/scaramanga_junk.jpg

[NealmCarter]

Theres one on eBay right now

[George Ray]

http://www.friend.ly.net/~dadadata/junks.html

........ Junk-rigged western-hulled yacht plans are available from Jay Benford, Jacques Mertens, Tom MacNaughton and Tom Colvin. ........

[Paul Pless]

........ Junk-rigged western-hulled yacht plans are available from Jay Benford, Jacques Mertens, Tom MacNaughton and Tom Colvin. ........
and Phil Bolger and John Welsford and...

[P.L.Lenihan]

...and Reuel Parker.........

[JimD]

and Bruce Roberts and Paul Fisher and even Ted Brewer

[WX]

Errr, no that isn't quite what I meant. I was wondering about these particular two. I already know about the Junk rig Assoc. etc.

[Pericles]

How big do you want your junks to be? file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/Dell/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/moz-screenshot.jpg

http://www.1421.tv/assets_cm/files/image/baochuan.jpg

http://www.1421.tv/pages/content/index.asp?PageID=97

http://www.1421.tv/

Pericles

[WX]

To start with, 24' 6" LOD will do me very nicely :D

[2MeterTroll]

To start with, 24' 6" LOD will do me very nicely :D

50' LOA and about 16' beam. just a little boat with a little hold for a few keepsakes.

[Thorne]

John949 -

You've seen the SF Maritime Museums repro junk Grace Quan, right? Often on the China Camp dock, and they do sail her at times.

http://www.nps.gov/safr/historyculture/images/Junk2004.jpg
http://www.nps.gov/archive/safr/junk.html
http://www.nps.gov/safr/historyculture/small-craft.htm
http://www.nps.gov/archive/safr/more_junk.html#inka

[ben2go]

I really like the flat nose junks.The first boats to use frameless building.They used bulkheads, like modern ships.I can't find plans for an original style junk anywhere.

[WX]

This does it for me.http://bambooman.gallery.netspace.net.au/albums/Redwing/20050906_021_Johanna_1024_dots.jpg

[2MeterTroll]

you mean like this. it might not work cause im not sure how to add photos.

ok how do you add photos?

[ben2go]

This does it for me.http://bambooman.gallery.netspace.net.au/albums/Redwing/20050906_021_Johanna_1024_dots.jpg

That is one sweet rig but they look awful difficult to set up and maintain.

[WX]

Dead easy to manage ben2go. To raise the sail you haul on the halyard and that pulls up the yard and sail, cleat off then haul on the yard parrel and that pulls the yard into the mast. To reef ease off on the halyard till the required number of panels have dropped, cleat off and haul the yard parrel to pull the yard back into the mast. reefing takes seconds and it can all be done from the companionway or even from below deck if you prefer. No need to go anywhere near the foredeck for sail handling. The Topping lifts (lazyjacks) control the sail as it is lowered. it really is an easy rig to use.

[ben2go]

Sounds like my kind of rig.Ice tea in one hand,rig in the other,and a toe on the rudder.LOL

[WX]

The only possible disadvantage I know of is the rig won't point as high as the marconi rig...but hey how many cruising yachties do you know that spend all their time beating to windward:D

[RFNK]

This junk was at the recent Australian Wooden Boat Festival. Wiser heads than mine may disagree but my jaw hit the floor when I saw the planking layout!

http://i470.photobucket.com/albums/rr69/rfnk/Junk.jpg

Working in Vietnam I've seen many hundreds of working, traditionally built Asian boats, although none now with sails, unfortunately (from my point of view!). I haven't seen anyone in Vietnam build a boat with planking laid out like this. Rick

[2MeterTroll]

The only possible disadvantage I know of is the rig won't point as high as the marconi rig...but hey how many cruising yachties do you know that spend all their time beating to windward:D


now WX I am not so sure of that. but till someone sails the same hull with each rig i will go with it.

mostly i opine; folks who like a junk rig are happy with it and don't tend to fiddle with it.
I know i look lazy with my bad leg kicked up on the gunnel and my hand on the tiller. scooting along hardly ever touching the lines. I seldom feel any compulsion to go faster because i figure its a waste of time to fiddle around with what works. but on occasion i feel energetic on the umiak and let the whole 170 SQ feet out for a run. I might be going sideways as fast as forward but i am going as fast as anyone is going to go in the style of whale boat the umiak is modeled on. then i drop in the dagger. :)

[kenjamin]

For the ulimate junk fix buy one of the used copies of Valentin A. Sokoloff's Ships of China (now out of print). Mine was pricy but the watercolor reproductions are wonderful. Many different kinds of junks are illustrated. The last picture in the book is Captain Short's Yangtze Pelican.

[bucheron]

. . . .the rig won't point as high as the marconi rig...:D

Probably not and yet . . . . . Annie Hill wrote in "Cruising on a Small Income", that she and her partner always felt confident when tacking up a narrow channel, that they would not botch a tack, because there was no jib to get across and sheet in. The physical effort of sheeting headsails was not there either. These two factors made up for the lesser pointing.

I have sailed a junk dinghy, 14ft IIRC. I found it could be sailed high, and it went into a "slow but controlled" zone, where a similar dinghy with bermuda rig, if pointed only a tad higher than optimum, will lose steerage way almost at once, and if the jib starts flapping, the drag is huge, sometimes causing an unwanted tack.

The junk I would love to know more about was in an otherwise awful movie called "Mysterious Island" based on the sequel novel to "20k leagues under the sea". There was a pirate ship which was a three masted junk, I would guess 150ft in length, , all wood that looked oiled. I have trawled the web looking for more about it, with no luck.

[2MeterTroll]

check out this link :) http://www.geocities.com/kp_diver/index111ChineseJunks3.html

[WX]

2MT, I had a good look around that sight and there is some wonderful stuff on there. The Junk photos are beautiful.
Did you look at the Magellan Straits photos?

[PeterSibley]

check out this link :) http://www.geocities.com/kp_diver/index111ChineseJunks3.html

:):)
Great photos , there is nothing like a 3 masted Chinese junk !

Does anyone have any idea if those Hong Kong junks in Aberdeen harbour ever slipped to anti foul ? If only for worm protection ?

[bucheron]

I agree, terrific pictures, I include the small craft. The yuloh enthusiasts would like these.

What about that bow bumper made from a rubber tyre on the "water taxi"?

cheers buchie

[PeterSibley]

Yep ,I noted the yulohs !

[WX]

I noted the rubber tire bumper as well:D

[slidercat]

I love the rig. I even built one once for our two-part nesting dinghy.

http://slidercat.com/blog/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/nesterjunk.jpg

By the way, I think anyone, cruiser or otherwise, who doesn't pay attention to weatherliness is going to be spending an awful lot of time going to windward. If your boat doesn't go well to windward, any windward legs in a cruise are going to take a lot more time than legs on more favorable points of sail.

It's my impression, however, that with things like cambered panels and Gurney flaps, that junk sails are becoming far more weatherly than they once were. And I wonder how much of the reputation for being unweatherly is due to the hulls the rigs are often paired with. Some of those heavy old cruising boats would be dogs to windward no matter what sort of rig you put on them.

[BETTY-B]

check out this link :) http://www.geocities.com/kp_diver/index111ChineseJunks3.html


What a killer link. Thanks.

Here's a shot of a junk in Victoria Harbour that I took one morning a couple years ago. Taken from Tsim Sha Tsui on the Kowloon Penninsula, HK:

http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d10/Bridgedeck/HonkKong.jpg

[2MeterTroll]

2MT, I had a good look around that sight and there is some wonderful stuff on there. The Junk photos are beautiful.
Did you look at the Magellan Straits photos?

WX having worked that area... you bet :)
I am still going over this site.

[2MeterTroll]

:):)
Great photos , there is nothing like a 3 masted Chinese junk !

Does anyone have any idea if those Hong Kong junks in Aberdeen harbour ever slipped to anti foul ? If only for worm protection ?

peter i understand that sampans get cleaned twice a month and junks a few times a year. I don't speak Chinese and the fella i was asking didn't speak very good English so thats the best i can tell you.

[2MeterTroll]

I love the rig. I even built one once for our two-part nesting dinghy.

http://slidercat.com/blog/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/nesterjunk.jpg

By the way, I think anyone, cruiser or otherwise, who doesn't pay attention to weatherliness is going to be spending an awful lot of time going to windward. If your boat doesn't go well to windward, any windward legs in a cruise are going to take a lot more time than legs on more favorable points of sail.

It's my impression, however, that with things like cambered panels and Gurney flaps, that junk sails are becoming far more weatherly than they once were. And I wonder how much of the reputation for being unweatherly is due to the hulls the rigs are often paired with. Some of those heavy old cruising boats would be dogs to windward no matter what sort of rig you put on them.


Slidercat I sail on a river so half my day is spent running into it. the junk rig is not bad at all. the biggest problem is that the way the rig works makes a body less inclined to go fiddle with it IMO.

[slidercat]

Slidercat I sail on a river so half my day is spent running into it. the junk rig is not bad at all. the biggest problem is that the way the rig works makes a body less inclined to go fiddle with it IMO.

That's a good point. The junk rig is quite complicated to set up initially, but in use, it's the easiest rig of all.