Has anyone ordered form SailboatsToGo?

Hi, I'm currently building a 16' outrigger canoe (my first building project) and I was looking for a flexible way to install a sail when I found this company called Sailboat To Go that sells sail rigs for canoes and kayaks. I was wondering if anyone had experience with any of their products.

I was thinking of just buying the mast/gaff/boom lateen sail setup and making a temporary sail out of tarpoline, but I don't know if it would be a good buy because I'm not sure exactly how rugged their products are. Also I have yet to figure out what size sail I will need so I may end up just buying the mast. Anyway, here's the website if you want to check it out: http://www.sailboatstogo.com/v_page.php?content=Snark_Sail

I'm just afraid they're gonna end up being made for occassional use rather than for an actual 'sailing canoe'.

 

Ok, I found a little more info and it's starting to seem like what I expected. The mast is 1 1/4" in diameter, aluminum, and comes in two parts. Then they have a "heavy duty" mast which replaces the bottom half of the regular mast. I was expecting something like 2.5"+ diameter, but I'm new to this and don't know what to expect. Would that be stong enough for regular use?

 

Canoe Mast

I have designed and built a number of sailing canoes over the past few years.

I have no experience with the linked supplier. You can make your own rig quite easily, though, and experiment with various rig sizes and styles by building your own sail from Tyvek building wrap. Really! It's incredibly cheap, especially if you visit a construction site where they are just wrapping the structure, prior to putting up the siding, and ask for the extra pieces. Better yet, ask if they have any end roll pieces that are just going to get tossed in the dumpster.

There are several sites on the Web for building your own Tyvek sail. With patience, double stick carpet tape and some ingenuity, you can try out different types before you invest in a sail maker or a sewing kit.

You can safely rig up to a 46 sq. ft. sail on a 1 5/8" outside diameter (OD) aluminum mast section. I routinely run a 56 sq. ft. main with a 22 sq. ft. jib on a 2" OD alu mast. The wall thickness is .056 with .065 wall thickness ferrules for a two piece mast that easily stows in the canoe hull for transport.

Chris Ostlind

 

Thanks, that sounds great. I just have one more question; one of the reasons I wanted to get their sail rig was that you could adjust its location along the hull, so if it needed to be rebalanced in some way, it could easily be done without having to change any permanent mounting structure. Since the boat I'm about to start building isn't according to plans that were purchased from a company, I'm guessing I will be doing a lot of adjustments. So how difficult is it to get the sail in the right spot it needs to be for the boat to be ballanced and stable? I'm guess a professional would use some sort of computer program, but how would I do that?

 

canoe rig

I'm guessing that your canoe has a pair of thwarts that are st at something like one third of the length in from each end of the boat. Place the mast at the forward thwart as that is a decent location structurally. The real balancing issues come fomr the placement of the leeboard or whatever type of keel form you will be using to create lateral resistance.

There are lots of leeboard design suggestions on the Internet that show a leeboard thwart setup that allows the thwart and the board to be positioned anyhwere along the mid span of the hull in order to achieve a balance between the effect of the board and the center of effort of the sail.

A nicely designed thwart for the board will allow you to relocate the thwart for the optimum sailing balance.

Check out the American Canoe Association (ACA) for suggested starting points. There is also a whole pile of info at the Sailing Canoes Group on Yahoo. The files and photo sections show dozens of different canoe rigs and equipment that has been cutom built to solve the many small issues to get your boat on the water and sailing.

Chris Ostlind