Ed Kattel was pretty much the God of open canoe racing as long as he felt like sailing, and his dimensions are still pretty much the standard.
Steve Clark, Contributing Editor, Warren, Rhode Island
This is a brief description of how Ed Kattel rigged his C Class ,or 5m2, canoes, and an example of one I built for Susan Chamberlain.
Actually, he cut down the sheer forward and aft so it was pretty much flat and put decks on the front and last third of the boat. This made (the boats) self rescuing, although it was entirely possible to drive the boats hard enough so they swamped from all the spray coming aboard. If sailed as aggressively as a Laser in 15+ winds, Elvstrom super maxi bailers really can’t keep up, so you always have to back off a bit or learn to bail while you sailed. At least with bulkheads and decks, you didn’t actually go all aglub and could stop and throw water for a bit and then continue on your merry way. The 100% open boats could reach a point of no return where they had such a load aboard they were simply defeated and had to be rescued.
Here's a copy of Ed's directions with diagrams on how to convert a paddling canoe into a sailing canoe.
Also attached are the dimensions of 23 canoes that competed in the 1977 National Championship in Florida. [Click to view]
This isn’t the latest stuff, many of the newer guys use reinforced windsurfer masts instead of Ed’s sleeved together aluminum tubes, and the hulls have improved a bit, but any of the more modern fiberglass canoes is a good place to start, that is if you don’t have a disused canoe lurking under the cottage
Doing this stuff to a Royalex canoe requires some messing around with either advanced adhesives or using some mechanical fasteners in ways that might frighten people.
I think this is the essential information that converts any open canoe into a sailing canoe.
Which I summarize as follows:
-You only need one leeboard.
-You start by placing the leeboard thwart ½ a butt’s width (8-10”) forward of the fore and aft center of the boat.
-Put the mast step 32” forward of the center of the leeboard thwart.
-Use aluminum tubes or something else to triangulate the mast step and thwart.
-Finally, the more you modify an open canoe to be a fully competent sailboat, the less good it is for paddling.
Just for the hell of it, I also attach two photos of a C Class Canoe I designed and built for Susan Chamberlain back in 1984 or so which pretty much illustrates the point.
The design was pretty much a paddling canoe shape under water, but the topsides and deck were all about keeping the water out. There were maximum width gunwales and, flare in the topsides and the foredeck was cambered like an IC. The sheer was also higher in the middle than in the ends, which really threw the traditionalist for a loop. I guess the fact that all new C Class canoes don’t look like this is a pretty good indication that the class didn’t accept this vision. It may also have been due to the fact that Susan moved to Berkley, CA the summer the boat was finished, and it never sailed a second regatta. But as far as I could ever figure, it was the only open canoe that could really play in the rough stuff with any sense of security. It really was quite a lot of fun.
