A sailing ring for a canoe.

Hi,
I'm new to this forum and I hope this an appropriate thread! Some years ago I built a wooden canadian canoe and I now would like to make a sailing rig for it. I could buy one but I fancy making one.

Does anyone have any sources of information for making a 40 SQ FT Lateen sail and the rig that would go with it ? I've got "Canoes Under Sail" by John Bull but I find it a wee bit vague. Also any info on making leeboards would be great.

Can anyone help?

Regards,
Jim.

 

Hi Jim, so you have a canoe and wants to put a 40ftLateen sail on it ?

Sounds to me you are going to need a few canoes to justify that sail size

Have a look at the software threads, there's links to software you can use to draw the shape in. I use delftship and there's freeship (said to be the same) which is nice to draw your design with.

You can also get the sections as an output to make it from. Just makes it easy.

 

Hey Jim,

There is info specifically available to you with regards to your interest in a lateen rig for canoe sailing at this site: http://www.paddlin.com/fivelakes/canoe_sailing.html#index

The 40 ft. lateen sail is the standard canoe sailing setup for the ACA (American Canoe Sailing Association) If you do a simple Google thing with canoe sailing and/or ACA sail rig in the search box, you'll open the door to so much material your head will spin.

Certainly, you should look at this page.
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~fassitt/canoe_mirror/canoe_sailing.html

Let us know when you get unburied from those sites.

I'll be happy to help you out with any questions you may have on canoe sailing once you get through a bit of the stuff mentioned above. Below are a couple of sailing canoes I have done in the recent past.

Chris

 

Ah ! Chris, now that's not a canoe any more... that's a trimaran.

 

Would you give me the notion, then, that the boat shown below is a canoe?

That is the main hull of the white canoe/tri you see in the post above when it was being tested for canoe paddling efficiency.

By the way, the last two shots here show the boat out on the local lake when the air and the water were both 26 degrees F.

Chris

 

I'm cold just looking at that centre photo. People can live there ?

Bottom photo's are canoes. If you add amas it's a tri. The little detail of adding them will make all the difference in weather you can put a sail up on it or not

 

I used the rig from a Snark sailboat to convert a canoe for sail. My canoe was fiberglass, and the way I mounted it was to drill a hole in the forward seat and glass a block of wood to the keelson to accept the butt of the mast.

For leeboards, I wanted to have a conversion that could be removed without affecting the canoe, and I wasn't sure where the leeboards should be mounted to properly balance the boat. So I ran a couple of aluminum rails from the center thwart to where the front seat bolted to the gunwale on each side. The rails were overhead tracks for sliding closet doors, so they were approximately I-beam shaped. The thwart with the leeboards was attached to the rails with U-bolts. This allowed the thwart to be moved forward and aft as required to find the proper location. Once located, I never moved it again. The disadvantage of the rails is they formed a significant obstruction in the forward half of the canoe, but were still as wide apart as the front seat.

The leeboards aren't all that critical in shape or construction. The deeper they are, the more efficient they will be. I made mine of mahogany, shaped to a flat-bottomed airfoil shape similar to a Clark Y, with the flat side outboard. The planform shape was constant chord with a tapered lower panel. The head of the leeboard was extended to form a handle, and the handle swept aft from the axis of the board. A shock cord was led forward from the handle to the front seat attachment, and a pendant with a hook on the end led aft. To lower the board, I would pull the pendant and hook it on the center thwart. To raise the board, all I had to do was release the pendant and the shock cord would raise the board. The purpose of the sweep back to the handle was to still give the shock cord some leverage with the board up.

The leeboard thwart was constructed of oak, about half an inch thick and four inches wide. At the ends, short square vertical pieces were added, making the thwart into a short H shape, and heavily gussetted. The leeboards were bolted to these end pieces. The joint with the thwart had to be very strong, because it had to take the bending moment from the boards cantilevered off of it.

I never got around to making a rudder - I just steered with a paddle. The boat was well balanced, and so needed minimal force from the paddle held as a rudder. In light winds, of course, a nice sweep stroke from the paddle was far superior in tacking the boat than a rudder would have been!

 

Have a look at Gary Dierkings site. He has also written an excellent book with specific designs for 3 sailing canoes entitled Building Outrigger Sailing Canoes.
I have the book and there is info on the construction of lanteen and other types of suitable sails.
Gary is also a member of this forum so you could do a member search as well.

 

Hi,
Thanks everybody there's loads of info for me to trawl through, should keep me busy for a while!
Regards,
Jim.

 

Nothing new with the idea of putting a sail on a canoe, try lookin up the "Rob Roy" canoe that did numerous ocean voyages over 100 years ago. Also Baden Powell did some voyages in a similar type of sailing canoe. Both of these vessels had a small fan style centerboard attached to the bottom and a fuly battened lug sail. A Google search should get more info on these.