A reader suggests a way to convert your paddler into a sailer

Bryan Denny, Fergus, Ontario, Canada

So you'd like to try canoe sailing but you have a canoe already and can't spend a wad on a prebuilt sailing kit? Your spouse is happy with the canoe "as is" and does want have fight his/her way around a mast and dagger boards for the evening paddle? You still enjoy the fun of running a river and don't want a permanent rig in the way? Well perhaps this is a solution you might try.

Build a semi permanent rig. Fasten in a "foot" and make the sail thwart removable.

What will you need? Well, I like wood for a sailing boat because it's cheap, easily worked, readily available and pleasing to the eye. A 6' length of 1x3 oak (or other hardwood) can be gotten at your local lumber yard. As far as tools, 4 or 6 C-clamps, a drill, screwdriver, tape measure and pencils, a few 3 ½” bolts and wing nuts, some glue, sandpaper, varnish and a small amount of Fiberglass will get you well on the way. You can of course use this as an excuse to justify those power tools in the garage (or to get some) if you wish, and yes—power makes a difference!

The first step would be to determine where you mount the sail step, that's a block predrilled to hold the bottom of the mast on the bottom of the canoe. Since you may not be sailing all the time, select a place out if the way yet positioned to place the "center of effort" of your sail over the widest point of your boat. A good spot for this seems to work out (in most canoes and with most sails) just forward of the bow seat.

Build your step from 1x3" oak, 2 pieces, one 5" long and one 7" long. Drill a hole 2" in diameter through the shorter and center it on the longer with 1" to fore and 1" to aft. Check the alignment and if it pleases you, Fiberglass the lower section, (the long piece) to your keel centered on the boat. As in fig 1 the idea is to provide a solid 1" thick spot to screw the drilled step socket to without piercing your hull. You may want to trim the ends at an angle to save stubbed toes and knees.

Fig 2 shows the approximate alignment of the mast step. If you have a plastic boat you can glue it into place with a high quality, construction adhesive but I haven't done this so...innovate!

Having done this you are 25% on the way to sailing.

Next we build the sail thwart. Measure your canoe's beam, that's the widest point of the boat, add on 6". Then secure a piece of 1x3" wood that matches your existing center thwart. I prefer oak but that's just me, any wood good enough to make a strong thwart will do. Cut it to the length you previously measured and find center. mark it clearly and drill another 2" hole right through it, centering it in all directions of course.

Now get a short length, (4' long at least) of 2" tubing or use your mast and a handy crew member and insert it through the sail thwart and into your prefastened step. Grab your trusty framing square and line it up vertically from side to side. Clamp the thwart temporarily onto the gunwales and eye it up from the side for rake (tilt fore and aft). Some prefer it vertical I like a slight rake to the aft. To avoid problems ("It looks crooked") later measure down the gunwales from the bow to the thwart and make it square.

Then take a pencil and make a clear, heavy line inside and outside of you gunwales on the thwarts' under side. Be sure to keep the pencil mark tight to the gunwales and make it clear, use a thin marker if you must; these lines are critical.

Now stop your dreaming of sailing away and remove the thwart and turn it over to expose those pencil lines.