Rigging and Sailing a Gunter Rig?

[ricknriver]

Hi, Acquired an older Oughtred 11'9" x 3'11" Acorn Skiff, built at The Landing School, on a good deal for mostly rowing adventures.  She came with a brand new gunter sailing rig and 48 sq. ft. sail that were never used. Have rigged and sailed sprit rigs some but never a gunter.  Guidance on available gunter sailing videos, articles, books, etc. appreciated.  Tks, Rick 

[messingdd97]

The wikipedia entry for the gunter sailing rig is pretty good, there are also some interesting videos on YouTube.

 

For such a small rig, I suggest you pick a non-windy day and put it up in the driveway. You'll spend more time reading the articles and watching the videos that it would take to put it up and figure it out.

 

I bought plans for a gunter rig from Duckworks. I've thought about using this rig on a small trimaran. With this rig, you could use a much shorter mast, use a pivoting mast step to get the mast up and down, and keep all of the rigging attached to the mast in order to minimize setup and launch time.

 

https://duckworks.com/kohler-gunter-rig-plans/

 

They also have an article:

 

https://www.duckworksmagazine.com/04/s/articles/gunter/index.htm

[andy00]

Get ahold of a copy of Phil Bolger's book 100 Small Boat Rigs. He devotes only one page to the Gunter rig, but it's a fascinating and useful read including the other 99 rigs. As Phil points out, the main object of the rig is to set a tall sail on a short mast. Having owned a boat with a gunter rig (Cape Dory 14) and others with sprit rigs, I found that to be a solution without a problem. Longer spars in a shorter boat can be stowed sticking out over the bow or the stern. An exception may be where a small boat is stowed on the deck of a larger craft and you want all the gear of the tender out of the way. The challenge with the Cape Dory 14 was to keep the gunter yard in the yoke at the masthead, which may be a feature unique to that boat, when it was blowing up a bit. That required the halyard be set very tight. Also, the spars (mast, yard, and boom) and sail were unwieldy and difficult to stow when you popped the mast out of its step when you wanted to row. If I was starting from scratch with an Acorn Skiff, I would fit it with a spritsail or a leg-o'-mutton with a sprit boom. The latter is basically the same as the Gunter by Oughtred but with a mast instead of the mast/yard combination. In any case, I'm sure you'll have fun messing around with the boat. Fair winds!

 

 

[ricknriver]

Many thanks to you both for the gunter information.  Will be giving it a go come spring