The mast position pretty much determined itself given that the first frame on this, Hannu Vartiala's design, and the first frame on John Harris' CLC Northeaster coincided exactly, so similar are their basic dimensions. John Harris prefers the simplicity of the balanced lug on many of his designs, and lug sailed boats, whether small craft or larger junks AKA Chinese lugs, usually have the mast well forward of where it would be on a bermudan rigged sloop or cutter. Harris placed the mast partner over the first frame, so so did I. Harris also inclines the mast backwards (whereas junks often incline their foremasts forward). Later research taught me that the Centre of Effort needs to be forward of the Centre of Lateral Resistance to avoid weather helm, but frankly while I can quote that, I have no real idea what it means. I am by no means a boat designer, although my father-in-law was a naval architect and in part I built this as a homage to honour his memory. I'm more of a wood butcher who got the idea into my head that perhaps I could build something that might float the right way up. And it does. What I have found out by trial and error is that it needed a much bigger rudder blade than I originally gave it, to respond to helm equally to both port and starboard, and therein lies part of the appeal of a home made wooden boat: you can tinker with the design ad infinitum, and not be too precious about it. I think we're on the fourth or fifth iteration of the rudder, and this version seems to work OK.
The specific position of the sail at the mast is determined by attaching the halyard at 35% along the yard, which is Jim Michalak's recommendation. As commented above, by forgetting to rig the boom parrel, or preventer, the tack is further forward than it should be, and also lets the boom move away from the mast. Both are said to be a bad thing but I'm not yet experienced enough to tell how much difference it makes in practice.
Another part of the fun has been confounding the club instructors. I sail on the headwaters of the Alqueva reservoir on the Spanish-Portuguese border. It's about 100km long down the Rio Guadiana to the dam, with only the top 20km or so in both countries before it becomes wholly Portuguese. Nobody here knows lug rigs. All the fitments are homemade from DIY shop timbers and bits of rope and string from Lidl. The only shop-bought parts of the rig are two pulleys from Amazon for the main sheet, and one of those is redundant. The yard and boom are curtain poles salvaged from my former office. Much consternation and mystified comments when I was sailing downwind by-the-lee i.e. with the sail against the mast rather than let fully out on the other side. "That ought to be impossible - but it works!" my instructor was overheard to say, not knowing, it seems, that the boat heels far less that way. I was just experimenting and didn't know that either.
