Something to make you bang your head against the nearest bulkhead, this is scary on so many levels, and about that tax plan...
The really wonderful thing about the balanced lug rig is just how little gear is needful to make it work... Some line and a few blocks is pretty much all you need.
Some folks feel the need to use a winch whenever a line needs to be pulled but, until you get into the near 500 square foot area sort of sails, just a simple single or double purchase halyard does the job. Considering the big yard, this surprises a lot of people but the reason most folks have problems raising their mainsails in the same old same sloop rig is not because of the weight of the sail but the amount of friction caused by track and whatever attachment system is joining the sail to the mast. The lug being by its very nature pretty close to frictionless does not need a lot of oomph to get it up...
Astute readers of Boat Bits (I'm sure) have already twigged to the fact that the mast on Bolger's ESC is not stepped on the centerline. I won't really go into that just now except to say that there are any number of advantages to doing this and the only downside is that it will drive dock walkers and folks of limited vision bat-fuck-crazy and they will make your life problematic from time to time. Yeah... I know this because our first Loose Moose (a Jessie Cooper design by Phil) also had an off-center mast.
So how to make an already pretty wonderful rig even better?
Well for one, as it seems most folks sailing these days have a strong grasp of foresails and suchlike, a small jib goes a long way to making the transition to a balanced lug facile and gives you another sail for better balance to tweak. Of course, adding a small jib is a complication as you'd need to add a couple of running backstays and maybe a forestay (I used the word "maybe" as foresails can be set flying and don't necessarily need a forestay). A small jib would also require one or two small winches (small here is the operative word) and a couple of blocks which, while adding some cost (not a lot, 20-30 bucks at a flea market) would make up for it in a good way.
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Lastly, while slab reefing works just fine on a balanced lug rig (that big yard scares the bejeezus out of a lot of folks though) the truth is not everyone wants to go up to the mast to reef and so you might want to think of a roller reefing system of the DIY sort (face it, anything you do with a balanced lug rig is an ALL DIY proposition). The good thing about roller reefing a balanced lug rig is that it is a simple, cheap, foolproof system, and it works...
Listening to Tedeschi Trucks Band
So it goes...
