Canoe to schooner conversion

I have my first boat that I made when I was 14. I don't use it for a canoe anymore, and I have built a much better one. Here is a picture of the first one that I would be converting.



I've been wondering what to do with it, and I decided maybe I should try turning it into a schooner! It will never be a good sailboat, so I might as well make it something fun.

I did some hull shape work in FreeShip. Basically I will add a long keel, 1.5 inches thick, to prevent leeway. I'm wondering if I should add any ballast to it to help with balance?


The canoe is 13.4 feet now, and with the new bow it would be 14 even, 22 from bowsprit to boom.
Here is one proposed sailplan. What do you all think? I would be singlehanding it.



Thoughts?

 

Isn't free yacht design software cool . . . Of course this is an impossibility, for several reasons, but you have fun with it, while the excitement still out weighs the realities, physics and the geometry.

 

Why do you say it will never be a good sailboat?

 

You've got to be kidding?

 

Oops... I was referring of course to the original un-modified canoe. It looks pretty good to me. If it was my boat I would spend some time making a good leeboard and good sails for it.

Wait... is the canoe shown in the picture the new better boat?

If you want a crazy project, then spend some time looking at vintage sailing canoes and copy those, maybe add a little sliding seat. Or go with outriggers (trimaran) and big sail area.

The proposed square rigger type boat, I certainly see the attraction, but it's the wrong hull, you really need a boat where you can stand up and sort out a line that gets caught on something! The long keel will make tacking impossible.

 

It will never be a good sailboat because it is a traditionally shaped canoe. Slow, displacement hull, built for carrying cargo by paddle, not for sailing, but it is a boat, and it's not bad either.

The square sail is an auxiliary I would hoist like a spinnaker if I'm bored. I would not use it for upwind work.

This is the better canoe I made. It weighs 26 lbs. :


Here is another schooner canoe someone else made. :



True, tacking would not be nice with too much keel. Do you think I should reduce it and make it shorter like a J class maybe?

 

I changed the keel profile to ease maneuverability. Do you guys think it would be acceptable to have the rudder built into the trailing edge of the keel or should it be a separate appendage?

 

leeboards, think leeboards. Check out the book "Canoe Rig", there is all the info you need. I junk rigged a 17'6" canoe years ago, yep two masted, sailed pretty good and was lots of fun. Later I put on a single lateen, a bit simpler and less strings. In the canoe rig book there is one rigged as a schooner with leeboards,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,have fun...g

 

I've made leeboards. If you look carefully, the first picture, with the Tyvek sail, has a leeboard on the far side of the boat. I agree they would work, but I don't like the clutter on the boat, and looks are important for this kind of thing, since it basically has very little else going for it, besides low cost. I also cannot ballast a leeboard as effectively as a keel, and I don't mind the draft loss. I would be more inclined to do a weighted daggerboard or centerboard. Daggerboard most likely, as I could use the one from my other boat and not have to worry about buying more lead or making another one.

 

perhaps something does't have to be a *good* sailboat to be an entertaining one...

I can't help thinking, though, that a Canoe with a deep keel would be a right pain in the neck to own what with all the problems of launching and recovery. Would't you really be better off with a centreboard or drop keel and a flat floor? Back in the day there were decked sailing canoes with ballasted pivoting drop keels that only dropped about 20 degrees and if you value shoal draft above windward ability something like that might be feasible.

This is Snake. Her place in history is that she is the earliest boat that has so far been traced as performing in a manner that was clearly planing.

 

That is a good point, I will run a model on the 50 lb ballasted daggerboard from my pocket yacht, and see how that one is compared to the fixed keel. I hadn't considered draft to be a problem, as it is only 1.25 feet in the linespans shown above, but it wouldn't hurt to be able to reduce it to the canoe-famous 4 inches or so. I would also probably get better windward performance with a high-aspect deep weighted daggerboard than I would with a shoal keel. It would probably be cheaper too, just needing to add a daggerboard slot and change the bow profile, instead of a whole underwater makeover.

 

You've drawn a absurdly proportioned topsail schooner, on a hull that clearly can't support it and you're worried about better windward ability with a weighted, higher aspect board?

 

I've sailed at places where 15" draught would mean an awfully long and tiring wade with the trailer...

Rig wise, if you want a twomasted boat I think it would be wise to lose the jib which means you can put the foremast right up towards the bow and gain room in the boat. Unlikely it became the typical rig for decked sailing canoes or no reason. The Canoe yawl has a long and honourable history. A larger foresail would also mean that the board would go further forward, which would be a good thing. Even though Snake's centreboard is a bit of a nonsense with what we now know about hydrodynamics, it does't look bad for room in the boat.

 

Remember, the primary purpose of this boat is to look like a mini version of the America schooner, and still sail acceptably well. It's for fun. I've got other boats if I actually want to get serious.

Par, how is this absurdly proportioned? Please explain. Are the sails in the wrong place? Are the masts too short? How would the hull not support it? Do you mean heeling moment? The canoe certainly can handle the weight...

Bear in mind, this is what most of my sailing is like:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJjdRemlVtk


And if the wind picks up, or I'm needing to tack frequently(Ie: sailing/paddling in and out of marina) the rig would look more like this(ignore the keel shape):

 

There's lots of problems with this type of approach, first is the lack of bearing area on the hull form and unless you're willing to put a very high ballast/displacement ratio bulb fin on it, she's just not going to stand. It's one thing to place a sail assist on a canoe, maybe even a toy rig, like the sprit schooner above, but another to attempt 8 separate sails, with a massive amount of area, even in very light air so high above, as tender a hull form as this, let alone the CG.

Do the math and see how much more area you have, compared to that sprit schooner and you'll see you're way over reasonable. For example what is the WS/SA for this puppy? What is the RM, the CG? With outriggers, you could force it to work, but then she becomes something else. I suspect the stability curve on this, with someone actively hiked out aggressively will be similar to that of a beach cat. Simply put, if you sneeze, you're going over. This assumes she has enough bearing to stand upright, with the weight of those spars so high up.