Re:  Gallant Rig

I have sailed and used the Gallant Rig several times on two different boats, a
45 ft ferro (modified Endeavour I think) (from Spain to England) and a 30 ft
prototype production yacht made from strip plank/epoxy; If you want I could put
you in touch with Jack Manners-Spencer, the Gallant designer and builder of
both; he may still supply rig designs. It is an impressive rig, though on the
heavy side with the materials and technology that were available at the time.
The symmetry of the aerofoil does not produce a significant deterioration over
an asymmetric foil in lift/drag ratio at the low airspeeds involved, which was
confirmed in various research projects aimed at developing the rig for both
low-tech third-world fishing vessels and large cargo-carrying ships, and the
sail profile (based on Spitfire wing shape research to produce an efficient
reduction of wing-tip vortex formation) gives good performance to windward with
remarkable resistance to stall, while offering the surprising feature of using
true aerodynamic lift downwind through the ability to allow the sail to rotate
completely forward so that the leading edge faces backwards! This produced an
interesting situation in the smaller boat while racing in the Solent, as the
racing rules about whether the boat was on starboard tack or not became rather
hard to apply : ) - we could 'tack' or 'gybe' in any direction by allowing the
sail to rotate round through 360 degrees using a 'lazy' sheet. The sheet loads
are very low and sheetlets are not required, just a conventional sheet to the
'boom'. I have some photos and brochures about the Gallant rig, but can't access
them from storage until I move house at Christmas.
Gavin