Here's a video (a slide show, really) with lots of good images of the Brazilian fishing craft known as a jangada. The soundtrack is a jangada fisherman's song. Most of the jangadas shown are of the more modern plank-built buoyancy-hull type, but there appear to be a couple of the log-raft variety. I find the mast, with its adjustable foot and severe curve, to be among the more interesting features of this type.
We've looked at jangadas in several previous posts. For more, see here.
Thanks to Brazilian friend/reader Silvio Antunha for this one.
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I love the shape of the sail. It seems that it is permanently attached to the mast and lacks a halyard. Hence there isn't a mechanism for maintaining tension in the sail by the usual combo of halyard pulling up and a downhaul on a boom pulling down. If the mast is made straight and the curve is pulled into it by the shape of the sail, then the bend in the mast would keep tension in the sail without the usual rigging. The sprit boom also is up a ways on the mast and since the mast is raked forward, it stays out of the way of the fishermen.
ReplyDeleteMy guess is that the rig has the advantage that the fishermen can concentrate on fishing because they only have a single line to attend to. They can be busy fishing instead of being busy sailing.