The Yawl Rig Option

I realize that the yawl rig is not everyone's cup of tea.

I just come to that because I like it, and sort of got attached to the yawl with our little Swan Bay sharpie. Also because being landlocked and the only nutcase here to build a seagoing boat, there is no way to find any cheap material or second had sails for a marconi sloop - if I would still live in la Rochelle, France, with 80 % of the european production yachts being built within 20 km, there would be everything I need at any price. But here it's much easier to build gaff.

Some notes on the options:

• Dropping the main will give you a boat that you can sail slowly and in perfect control. Sounds not like much, but I like to maneuver under sail, and my last boat, 7 tons of steel and a very sharp bow, I had no engine for most of the time and no money for insurance either - they still remember me in the marinas on the french Atlantic. I remember most of all one sunday I spent with a pot of gel coat and another of varnish making the rounds in my dinghy after a particularly successful arrival in Les Sable d'Olonne ;-)
• The Staysail has a boom and will self-tack. Drop the jib and you can tack without touching a sheet.
• I would like to have the main mast in a tabernacle, for easy rigging. I have once seen 20 m barge in Holland "shoot a bridge" meaning sailing right up to a low bridge, lower the entire rig under way, pass the bridge on the errant and raise the rig right after the bridge. Not a word was spoken on deck. I would not try that myself, but it sure impressed me ;-)
• The mizzen is stuck in a hole in the transom corner. It has to be out of the way of the helm&rudder, and from my experience on the sharpie that we built, I know it works just as well as if it was in the center.