help with an outrigger sailing canoe

[brett price]

I built a skin on frame canoe but i didn't flatten the bottom enough. So i built an outrigger and sailing rig for it.

http://i483.photobucket.com/albums/rr195/rallyview/cat/DSC00922.jpg
http://i483.photobucket.com/albums/rr195/rallyview/cat/DSC00933.jpg
http://i483.photobucket.com/albums/rr195/rallyview/cat/DSC00900.jpg

There was barely enough breeze to sail this weekend but it did go to windward. Sort of. The sail is probably too small and the boat made a considerable amount of leeway. I think the boat will need a leeboard. Can i install the leeboard on the outrigger?

Anyone have experience with a boat like this? Any thoughts?

[ShagRock]

What do you mean by "it wasn't flat enough"..do you mean it's unstable? Your craft with one outrigger smaller than the main hull is more akin to a proa rather than a multihull design which would have two amas or a cat with two same-size main hulls..but I guess that definition would depend on how one would set up the sail rig to tack the craft.

I'm not an expert here, but someone will be along with ideas for a leeboard design to improve your sailing canoe. You could sent a PM to member Todd Bradshaw if he happens to miss this one. The primer at the link below might be worth reading. By the way, I like your aka/ama setup.

http://proafile.com/view/weblog/comments/a_primer_on_proas/

The WCHA also has a sub-forum dedicated to 'sailing canoes'.

http://forums.wcha.org/forumdisplay.php?f=10

[Chris Ostlind]

You'll need a leeboard of some sort with the shape of the canoe hull and ama. They work best when they are mounted near the widest point of the canoe hull, but that probably will not be a correct location relative to the sail area. Experimentation will be your friend.

The pipe flange mast step is not going to last long without something else to hold the mast vertical. You may want to create a pair of supports to the mast as high up the mast as you can get them before getting in the way of the sail and sprit. You can run them to the forward aka and it will go miles towards keeping the rig upright.

Looking at a lot of sailing canoes will get you in the ballpark for basic relationships.

Most of all, have fun

[DGentry]

Your canoe looks like it has seats in it . . . if you have been sitting in them and paddling, then that's your problem right there. Sit on the floor and your boat will be much, much, much more stable. Solo canoes of that size are designed to be paddled from the floor.
I've also built a SOF canoe that big - they're fun! Good luck with your sailing experiment.

You might want to peruse forumite Todd Bradshaw's excellent book:
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/413Z7CNV9TL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg


Dave Gentry

[Cuyahoga Chuck]

"I built a skin on frame canoe but i didn't flatten the bottom enough. So i built an outrigger and sailing rig for it. "

If you frequent paddleboat sites, particularly kayak sites, you see this every now and then. The first question usually is," is the paddler the problem or the boat?". Peoples sense of stability varies a lot. The second question is, "is installing an outrigger the only way to make a paddleboat feel stabile?" Maybe for a boat that is really hopeless but your boat doesn't seem to have a hull shape that is all that unusual.
A lot of newbies don't know about center of gravity and all that physics stuff. They don't know that canoe seats are usually adjustible for height. A lightly burdened boat with a lightweight paddler may have to have the seats lowered to make it fell stabile. It's also possible to increase stablility by simply paddling in a kneeling position.
I think what you have done is construct a more complex problem than the one you started with. Rigging a rowboat to sail takes a fair amount of modification and adjustment to make it work right. But because there are plenty of sailboat-rowboats out there knowing where to place the components is not a problem. When you get into catamarans and proas you are in a totally different world.
Sailing is all about control, particularly when you are trying to tack into the wind. If the boat won't tack it is not much good as a sailboat. Having to paddle or row home upwind will get old fast.
Next, I don't think your mast is going to survive a stiff wind. It doesn't look like there is much supporting it except a floor flange and there don't seem to be any mast stays.
Lastly, I like your canoe. It looks like it is well built. It strongly resembles a Geodesic AiroLite of similar construction. There are hundreds of them in use and none required a outrigger. Take off all that hardware, load some sandabags for ballast (I use gallon jugs of water) and go paddling.

[peterAustralia]

I think a leeboard would be your best option.

To see what others have done, have a short look here, almost 30 examples of the type of craft you have.

www.tacking-outrigger.com

Yes, because of your smooth round bottom you will get blown all over the place. The question you have to ask it what kind of board / keel best suits you. A low aspect keel might be robust and simple, may not point too high upwind though . I would put the board on the main hull.

Your sail area looks a bit low, try it out and see what happens. If you have more sail area, you can add reefing points to reduce sail area in strong breeze.

Lastly, you may need some water ballast, could be useful in trim for your boat and useful in reducing windage and smoothing the motion of the boat in a steep chop. Suggest trial and error, if it works for you then go for it.

good luck
n peter evans

[Todd Bradshaw]

The stability rule of thumb for comfortable tandem canoes with typical seat height (when paddling) is generally around 32" of beam or better at the 4" waterline. Get much rounder or narrower on the bottom than that and most folks find them a bit twitchy. For solo use, where you're the only person rocking the boat, you could probably go down to the range of 26"-28" or so and it will feel similarly stable. Experienced paddlers can certainly go narrower, once they get used to paddling a tender boat and as mentioned, seat height can make quite a difference. Sailing stability is a different story, with different forces contributing to it. Sitting down at floor level, I'd be surprised if a more typical, mono-hulled sailing canoe system, without the added weight, drag and serious complications of the whole outrigger scenario, wouldn't sail better. It's a really pretty little hull and once you get the right set-up and your weight down where it should be, I suspect that it might sail nicely.

As shown, I've never tried to purposely break a pipe flange, but also have doubts about its strength and would feel a lot better if there were some lines or wires helping to keep the mast up. The leeboard(s) should be positioned under the middle of the sail. It seems to me that you have a reasonably robust gunwale system for a skin boat and I'd probably try adding a fairly-typical, clamp-on-style leeboard bracket, clamped to the gunwales. Sometimes a leeboard is mounted to one of the cross-bars, next to the hull on outriggers, but a clamp-on gunwale bracket might be easier to make and adjust as needed. I don't believe that adding the leeboard way out there on the ama is going to do what you want it to do.

[Dan St Gean]

Todd and Chris are right here.

You might try it as a sailing canoe with you sitting/kneeling on the bottom.

Or you could use all the outrigger stuff you've already made and add a leeboard and a freestanding mast IN the canoe. You'll probably need to add some structure there.

Check out Gary Dierking's blog or book Building Outrigger Canoes.

Tim Anderson has a SOF outrigger here http://www.instructables.com/id/Skin-On-Frame-Outrigger-Sailing-Canoe/

Try
http://www.capefalconkayak.com/outriggersailingcanoes.html
for another look.
http://www.capefalconkayak.com/otrigger%20ribs.jpg

It will work, and you'll have fun doing it!

Dan

[brett price]

The canoe seats act more like intermediate thwarts. I haven't tried to sit on them. The hull is useable but uncomfortably tippy if i kneel or sit towards the center. The real problem with using the canoe like that is the gunwale width is too wide and deep to use a double paddle.

I had the galvanised pipe and an eight foot closet pole lying around and one thing led to another but i agree the mast is not going to work longterm. I'll try to move the sail into the main hull and add a leeboard.

The websites on tacking outriggers were interesting i'm still trying to digest the information. What about websites on monohull sailing canoes any recomendations? Thanks.

The remnants of huricane ida should provide some wind tomorrow evening. I'll see what happens

[ShagRock]

What about websites on monohull sailing canoes any recomendations?

The WCHA subforum in the US is worth checking out.

http://forums.wcha.org/forumdisplay.php?f=10

Another excellent site is the Open Canoe Sailing Group in the UK..lots of information on setting up and rigging canoes for sail.

http://www.ocsg.org.uk/htm

By the way, Dan makes a good point about relocating your mast to the front end of your main hull (which you would be doing anyway if you try sailing without the outrigger). I've never seen a rig set up on the aka like you have. Since you have already done most of the work, you have the advantage of trying things both ways (mono and multi), which should make for some fun comparisons. Good luck!