Welcome, Mark, to the extremely select band (that's my impression, anyway) of T12 builders/sailors!
My boat (she is to be "Cavatina" by name) is finished at long last, and will (everything else being equal-ish) be launched this Saturday (15th Sept). The lack of pictured progress is entirely due to my seriously difficult combination of IT imbecility - down to finding digital-camera-pictures-into-and-out-of-computers almost insuperable - and resultant IT phobia. (WHY are ALL these electronic gadgets made umpteen-times more complicated than they need to be???). However, I've actually taken a few pics already, and hope the launch will be recorded by my humiliatingly IT-competent offspring (my eldest is even a professional photographer with super-long lenses etc, but probably can't be there). So I plan to see if I can get some pics onto the home-build slot fairly soon, with some comments on my build experiences.
For here, just two comments, made with huge respect for Matt-the-man and Matt-the designer. Also, I haven't yet even sailed the T12! So first, I already love this pretty little boat, and I expect her to be both stable and - with her 80sq ft junk rig - quite feisty too. Reading between the lines, she seems to have been more than a tad disappointing, performance wise, with the lug rig: the SB-gunter might be better. Matt agrees that the design is probably under-canvassed, and might be interested in beefing it up a bit (my suggestion, not his!). For some reason(s), Swallowboats seem to have given up a bit on the Trouper, as reflected in the YEARS-out-of-date publicity on the SB website. It's also reflected in the build instructions - those I received, anyway - which were incomplete (nothing on how to fit the transom, for example!), and some build problems which would have been smoothed out if larger numbers of T12s were being built. Clearly, providing problem-proof instructions is a big big task which only makes sense if a lot of kits go out. It's an economic catch 22. I'll withhold further comment until after sailing trials!
Second, based on my experience of my JR Storm Petrel, I remain convinced of the virtues of junk rig itself, which is remarkably powerful and easy to handle, not to mention the wondrous reefing capability!! The problems (NOT insuperable, and I'm nearly there) relate to rigging/de-rigging on small trailer-sailer scale. There are running rigging lines (parrels etc), which can't realistically be rove from scratch every time the mast is stepped/unstepped, so a way has to be found of keeping them in place, in relation to what JRers call the 'sail bundle' (spars + battens + sail), while the mast comes out/goes in. As I said, I hope I've cracked it. This second JR (T12) rig benefits enormously from experience with the first (SP) one. Again, further comments after sailing trials.
Watch this (and another) space.
Michael
