a canoe rigging ? for those in the know...

[360weatherbound]

I am midway through building a sailing canoe. The plans are calling for a 10 1/2 ft mast and a 50 sq/ft gaff rigged sail. I am free to mess around and I like the idea of more sale but dont want to tack on much more weight. Im also pretty certain I am going to put an outriggor on.
How about moving the mast(unstayed sticking in a hole through the deck) to the back of the boat and running a small genoa, w/roller furler so as to be able to quickly reef, as the main. This would be a tacking outriggor.

What does anyone think of that?
Am I giving up something?
How big could I make the sail?
Is it a sail that should go to a sailmaker?

[Alex.A]

Have you seen pics/thread on Fanie's tri that had this rig?
Interesting and though not 100% successful - he definately going on with the concept with future boats.

[360weatherbound]

I looked him up but just saw the Catamaran. I'd like to see the link if you have it handy.
Thanks

[Alex.A]

Try aftmast rigs or mainstaysail - or ask him, sorry cant remember exact thread title. Worked ok except for keeping the stay tight enough.

[messabout]

Let us be practical even if it disappoints us. Too much sail on a canoe is going to spoil your day. The conventional canoe hull has a finite limit of speed. That is to say that doubling the sail area will not necessarily double your speed. What it will do is make the canoe a real handful. Way back in the day it was not unusual for racing canoes to split the rig into a cat ketch configuration. That kind of rig was fairly manageable.

International 10 meter canoes, which do not look at all like the general perception of a canoe, does frequently use a main with a jib. The jib is more blade than genoa. The IC is one of the fastest small monohulls you can find, but it ain't a canoe and it uses a hiking plank and considerable skipper skill to keep it right side up.

Go with the plans and rig the boat accordingly.

[Alex.A]

Probably right.... but check this out anyway - www.faze.co.za/little%20Tri/little%20Tri.html

[Fanie]

Sorry Alex, the last page is here - http://www.faze.co.za/Little%20Tri/L...20Tri%204.html

There were some other changes and experiments I did. If you have a small sail in mild wind you can handle it by hand. The little tri had only 12m^2 sail area but when the wind was up 30+km/hr the sail lifted my 100kg clear out of the hull and put me on the tramp, you need a proper cleat and a double pulley ratio.

I added a boom to see how well that would work and it made it a lot easier to keep the foot of the sail streight. If you're interested I can put up more pictures.

The lift in the sail keeps the tri from heeling, even in a stiff wind there is very little heel.

I suspect the daggerboard should be more foreward a bit, in high winds the lift of the sail keeps you from turning to wind.

The sailing setup is really easy to handle. I never added an auto tacking thing which would have been very nice.

Personally I'm happy with what I experienced. The harder the wind the better it goes too, the tri not the best shaped hull for speed as it was.


I sold all my boats, cannot work outside at nigh due to too many criminals roaming the area. My bigger boat goes a lot slower than I anticipated mainly because I cannot work outside. No space inside, but I'm working on it.

Being boatless is really shitty, I become pannicy whenever a cload appears on the horizon

[360weatherbound]

Thanks for the link, that was what I was thinking.
I don't have that king of room for rigging though.
Oh well.