It sailed well reefed. In retrospect this is probably the sail area that should have been used. Reducing sail could be done by either dropping the jib or reefing both jib and main. In either case the area is the same. I found it was much better to take the time to reef and use both sails rather than drop the jib. The jib is an amazing sail. Its power is disproportionate to its size. Although it's one-third the size of the main, it felt as though it had half the power—and added very little to the heeling moment. By dropping the jib to reduce sail, the power fell off but there was little reduction in the boat's tendency to heel. Making it worse, the helm balance was thrown off giving it a heavier than desirable weather helm.

Besides being overcanvassed, there were other problems. The plywood leeboards and rudder tended to float up. To put the rudder down meant creeping all the way aft which meant someone had to go forward to counterbalance the shift in trim. To solve this, I experimented with metal sheet. I couldn't afford aluminum so I had them made from steel, about the same size and shape as the plywood rudder. This added 30 lbs. to the all up weight. No more floating leeboards but it was definitely starting to get too heavy. I also learned that thin (1/8th in.) plate doesn't make for good leeboards. For want of a better description, they just didn't seem to have a good bite on the water. They "worked" but felt mushy in comparison. For the same reason, I became leery of the thin plate rudder. In spite of its size it seemed to have less power than I was used to.

Obviously, more tinkering needed to be done. It was beginning to sink in that I'd gotten my hands on an overly ambitious rig that needed some rethinking. On what turned out to be the last sail of the season, the breeze was puffy and we both needed to hike out in the puffs. One good puff came up and we handled it nicely, hiking well out. But it let up suddenly--more quickly than we could react and get back inside. The canoe heeled backwards and water came over the side. So did my wife. She fell out and was replaced by a load of water. But it stayed upright. We were close enough to shore that she only needed to wade to a spot where I could paddle over and pick her up. After she got back in we bailed the boat out. It was about two-thirds full. This went quickly and while we were patting ourselves on the back for having escaped what seemed like an almost certain capsize, she noticed a jib hank had come off the stay. No problem. She went forward to fix it while I counterbalanced the weight shift. On the way back, the canoe bounced a little in a wave. Forgetting for a moment where she was, she reached up to grab the mast to steady herself. This was too sudden for me to counterbalance and this time we both went swimming. The canoe lay on its side and stayed afloat because of the two innertubes lashed under the seats. She swam around to pick up the few things that were beginning to float away while I lowered the sails to get it back upright. Nothing was lost. What might have gone down had been tied in beforehand. Left to our own devices, we would have swum the canoe to a nearby island and set it back up. As it was, a power boat had seen us and we accepted their offer for a tow home. With good weather coming to an end and the rethinking and work to be done, the canoe wound up in winter storage before it could be taken out again. I didn't know then that this would be its last sail.

When I went to get it out next spring, I discovered a heavy snow load had ruptured the hull in two places. I was able to get these repaired by the manufacturer but I saw it as the handwriting on the wall. The fiberglass hull had flexed a great deal under normal load with that rig. Now weakened by the ruptures, it seemed that the project needed some very serious thought. Of the options I considered, the best one seemed to be to salvage the sailing rig and find a more suitable hull for it—not a canoe. I sold the canoe and started looking for a boat. As a sailing canoe project, the Kingfisher could hardly be called a success—it was anything but. It didn't work as I'd hoped, it was too elaborate to set up quickly, and in the end it broke. However, it occurs to me that if I'd spent the same money on a seminar, had I been able to find one, I doubt that I could've learned half as much as I did from experiencing the mistakes. Best of all was the inspiration it gave me to keep looking. I didn't realize at the time that it would lead to building and rigging another sailing canoe--boat building was way off my radar. But that's another story.

All photos taken by me at our house in Nottingham, NH, 1994 and 1995.

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