I am a complete newbie to sailing.

I have a Wee Lassie that I built from Western Red Cedar using Mac Macarthy's book on featherweight boat building. In his book he has a short section on sailing the Wee Lassie. It looks like something I would love to do. However, his descriptions of how to do this are very general and have a level of expected knowledge to them. I have a few basic questions that I need answered and hope you guys and gals can help me with.

What do I make a sail out of?

His diagram shows a Triangular sail with about 18 sq. ft area if I remember correctly.

Is this a good shape for a small single place canoe wieghing 21pounds empty (no rudder, lee board, etc)?

Thanks. I look forward to hearing from you.

-Matt

Pic of me and my boat:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/matt_chester/3613752301/

Surely you can have a lot of informations from many members of this magazine, but I highly recommend you to purchass Todd Bradshaw's book: ''Canoe Rigging: The Essence and the Art''. I consider it as the ''Bible'' to canoe rigging. If you only have one book to buy, buy this book. I have it since march 2009 and I can say that this book is ''free'', meaning you will save so much time, efforts, and build the good thing right away, unless you have absolutly no skill, thus the money you invest in the book will pay for itself. The book is available from Amazon.com where you can find the link in this magazine.

Hi,

Check out PolySail International http://www.polysail.com/
on how to build poly tarp sails. Dave Gray sells very nice kits that are cheap prices. He moved from IN to FL and his site isn't completely up and running yet, but he has free sail plans and lots of instructions. I built the jib from his plans in my avatar and my own design main sail in the picture from one $65 kit and still have poly tarp left over. Besides mine being taped I also sewed mine but they say just taping can last a couple of years or better. You wouldn't want the sail below but a lower sail so as not to flip you over unless you use pontoons as I do.

I also have the Todd E. Bradshaw book "Canoe Rig-the essence and the Art" that I got from Amazon.com. I found the book at about half price from one of the Amazon side sellers in new condition. It is a very beautiful book with great art work and pictures.

John

Good job John. I wish I could see a clip of your canoe in action.

This is about as close to an action picture as I have, taken from inside the boat last year. I would like to see an action picture taken from shore myself. If I could only drag my wife to the lake. I had nice sailing two days ago with the pontoon almost buried to the cross bar.

John