Okay, now I'm getting juiced about this. I've been thinking about putting a rig on my solo canoe (15feet x 29inches wide, flat bottom, cedar strip) for a long time. I have Todd Bradshaw's excellent book for guidance.

The canoe has 4-oz. fiberglass inside, and 6-oz 'glass outside. Should I expect some structural issues from rigging this? The larger the sail, the more structural strain on the hull, no doubt. How do I know how large of a sail is appropriate, so I don't end up having to do major hull repairs?

Many thanks in advance!
Paul Klonowski

Hello pklonowski,

I too have "THE book" and it was a major help to me as it will be to you as you proceed. I have a 45sq. ft. rig on my 14' 10" X 36" Old Town pathfinder and its a good fit proportionally. It doesn't seem to strain the ash step or thwarts very much and the pine mast is still going strong. The pathfinder is made of Royalex though so I don't know how strong your cedar one is or how much it can take. I know others have gone before you with ceder rigs and they were able to make it work so you probably can too. If you follow Todd's illustrations I think you should be fine.

Good luck and welcome to the club!

Thank you! I suppose the smaller sail area would be a better way to start re-learning to sail, after many years away from it. I might not tip over quite as often as I work my way up the learning curve...

Sounds like a plan!
pk

Hi Paul I hope this site is helpful. I also love the idea of retrofitting an existing canoe. Here is the link:
freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~fassitt/canoe_mirror/manning/manning.html
I wouldn't mind hearing what others think.

Dan

I recall seeing that setup, and all I could think was "what an utter mess."
Now, that criticism out of the way, it does point to those concerns one must have when rigging for sail. There are a lot of better setups and the average person can come up with a solution that doesn't require drilling holes into the boat, or 11 miles of line...or a tripod to mount the sail....
The best part of that whole rig is the way the leeboard is clamped between two boards, but again, there are much, much better ways.
I'm sure others will jump in here and provide more realistic diagrams to help the process along.

Yeah, it sure looks like a Boy Scout project doesn't it? I should reread it because I didn't think it required drilling any holes in the boat. I know this doesn't apply to many people here, but for someone who does not own a boat (Apt. dweller etc.) maybe it could be of some value to the person who is always going to be borrowing or renting? But again I agree it doesn't get any points for style.