Missteps on the way to creating a sailing canoe
Charles Campbell, Nottingham, NH

With the way things turned out I'm a little embarrassed now that I actually gave this thing a name. Anyone who's had experience putting together a sailing canoe will easily spot many of the mistakes. But fifteen years ago when I got serious about replacing the old Sportspal with something more interesting, I had hardly a clue of how to go about it. There was the experience with the Sportspal , of course, and I had a couple of books about boats with pictures, so I knew a little terminology—but not much more. I had no idea about what sail area I could get away with, leeboard and rudder sizes required, how to attach a rudder to the canoe stern, how to step the mast.... 

But I really wanted the canoe. So we went shopping for one that looked as if it might do the job. We found a locally manufactured fiberglass canoe 16 ft. and 36 in. beam. I wasn't sure about its stability but they let us try it out. It seemed comparable to the Sportspal, which is unusually stable for its size, so we took it home. The gaff rig with jib appealed to me, and since this was supposed to be more interesting than the lateen rig on the Sportspal, why not go for it? With no idea how much sail was appropriate, I decided it would be prudent to first try a cheap prototype using plastic drop cloth. If it turned out to be overcanvassed, I had little to lose by cutting it down or replacing it. When I got it right, I could then take the plan to the sailmaker. It seemed a reasonable strategy. The picture is of this rig in its first season. 

The rudder is conspicuous by its absence. It was off for repairs and modifications. My experiments with substituting a door hinge for pintles and gudgeons were naive about the stresses involved and it kept breaking. Even after solving the structural problem, it was almost impossible to insert the hinge pin into the leaves, which had to be done afloat. Sail size was arrived at by mimicking what I'd seen in the boat books, proportioning it to what appeared about right for the canoe length. Not such a good gauge, it turns out. The mast was a stayed piece of thick-walled aluminum tube I picked up as surplus at an awning shop for a better than reasonable price. Much too heavy. With the sails raised and the canoe in the water, someone had to be in it to keep it from falling over. To minimize this inconvenience, I rigged it onshore, dragged it into the water and held it up while my wife climbed in. (She was braver then than she is now—for good reason.)

This rig was tinker intensive. With the intervals needed for repairs and modifications, it didn't get as much time in the water as it should. Most of the sailing was done in light to gentle conditions which were never strong enough to get a good feel for the sail size. That is until one day when a serious gust came up. On an otherwise calm day with a few light puffs I noticed a dark patch on the water far upwind and thought that finally we'd get to actually sail—we'd had so little real sailing up to that point. When the dark patch got close enough to see what it actually was, I had just enough time to luff up to avoid getting blown over. It soon passed and we'd weathered it nicely. It was solely on that basis I decided the sail area was manageable (heeling had never been excessive). But just to be prudent, I cut the area down for the final plan. The original was nearly 70 sq. ft. in the main and 20 for the jib. I reduced the main to 60 sq. ft. for a total area of 80 sq. ft. The first reef on main and jib reduced it further to 60 sq. ft. total. This is the plan that went to the sailmaker. The picture shows the new rig as it started the next season.

By this time I'd figured out a way to attach conventional light duty gudgeons to the stern. With matching pintles on the rudder, that problem was solved. A permanent leeboard thwart has replaced the jury rigged version and the heavy mast was replaced by a light 2-piece aluminum flagpole. Things were looking up. The tiller was still a temporary experiment—3 ft. long with a scissors extension of the same length. I quickly found this configuration to be a serious threat to finger health and learned to always close the extension before ever picking it up! I'd copied this from dinghies I'd seen. Not recommended. It was later replaced by a short inboard tiller attached to the rudder head by aircraft control cables (from the West Marine catalog). The height of the boom is conspicuous. It kept it off our heads but I hate to think what it does to the CE. Heeling with this rig was a problem.