One of the best ways to get a high performance rig at minimal cost is to buy an old racing dinghy that may be rotting away but still has several thousand dollars worth of stainless steel hardware, aluminium spars and a set of sails. I got lucky and found the rig from a NZ/Aus Javelin racing dinghy for $150. The Javelin is a 14' development class, designed by John Spencer, that's been around since 1961. It can do 25 knots with it's big gennaker. I only got a main and jib, along with a 24' aluminium tapered mast, boom and a big bucket full of hardware.
Racers don't usually have any way to reef, so the first job was to modify the sail for two big slab reefs. The sail also had a boltrope along the luff that fed into a slot on the mast. It's much easier to raise and lower the sail if it has slug slides that fit into the slot, so I put in grommets and slides.
After hoisting the sail for the first time, I was very pleased with the foil shape. My sail is a little older than the one in the first photo and has less of a square head than the newer ones.
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