Perfect, Portable (very) small craft sail?

[jbarros]

I'm spending more and more time thinking about putting a sail on a kayak. While there are a number of kayak sails on the market, very few of them have what look by any measure I can tell to be efficient rigs (With the possible exception of the Keppler rig, which requires no shortage of deck hardware.

So I'm pondering trying to make my own simple, efficient rig to be mounted and unmounted while on the water, to power a small, efficient (kayak) hull. I'd like to do this with as little modification to the kayak as possible. A lot of people seem to like older rigs like the balanced lug rig, due to the fact that the kayak isn't going to point that high anyway (at best there's going to be a small leeboard)

Thoughts? suggestions?

Thanks.

-- James

[drobarge]

i made one for my dagger blackwater 120 with a six foot x-tra heavy action fishing rod with the line guides removed for a mast. I then cut five feet from the top of a mainsail i had laying around, the sail had a bolt rope sewn in along the luff.(cut along an existing seam if you can and you don't have to re-sew the cut edge) I removed the stiching for the bolt rope and pulled it out. This left a sleeve which I slip the fishin' rod into. To step the mast I mounted a recessed flush mount rod holder in the deck of the kayak. I mounted the holder with a little rake.(probly not nessesary) I use a very light line for the sheet and run it to a jam cleat mounted on both sides of the cockpit,this line was already in place as the sail had a leech tension adjustment. This works about 15 degrees either side of dead down wind. I have a fair sized skeg and steer with my weight or paddle when needed, a boat with a factory rudder should work even better. I had all the parts on hand so it cost me zip. when not in use i roll the sail around the rod and slide it below deck. I can easily rig and take it down while seated and underway.

[klem]

I think that is a reasonable plan. Do you have a specific kayak model in mind as a starting point? How do you plan to support the mast and attach shrouds? Would you add something to the deck/under the deck to strengthen it?

I would caution that you need to be able to easily set and douse the sail from the cockpit(in other words not waiting until you beach it). I would think that a lug rig would definitely be preferable to sprit due to the issues with setting the sprit. A gaff rig would be a bit harder to set but should work.

[WanderingStar]

I made a lug rig of polytarp and clear duct tape. It worked well until it came apart. There is a canoe sailing forum on yahoo with m any pictures and diagrams.

[jbarros]

drobarge,

That's brilliant in it's resourcefulness. I was hoping for somewhat better than 15 off ddw, and I have neither an old sail nor a fishing rod, but I love hearing about stuff like this. Bravo!

Klem,

I will be assembling a Stitch and Glue Night Heron from CLC, from a kit. I was hoping to come up with some type of recessed fitting for the mast, and go without any stays, thus allowing me to unseat the mast and store it below for paddling unimpeded. I was thinking about trying to come up with something I could reef, but the more I think about it, the more simply having a sail I can unseat and store below if the winds become too nasty seems like a fine compromise, after all, it is a kayak, I'm not allergic to paddling. I rather like drobarge's idea of using a recessed pole holder, and perhaps getting a blank for a rather tough tuna rod, and merely making something up to slip over that, but with a boom so I could get some slightly better performance out of it. (hopefully)

There are other considerations as well, of course. A lee board, a rudder big enough to matter under sail (on a kayak that would otherwise not have a rudder at all) but I think the overall idea is doable. Of course, with the simpler, unstayed marconi rig, I lose a lot of the sail area I could theoretically get from a lug. The other issue is that this 18' boat is all of 20" wide, (length to beam at 10.8/1) so it's not going to take a lot of sail to drive her, but it's also not going to take a lot to blow her over, so both from the perspective of stability, but also from the perspective of being easier to unseat from the cocpit, I want to keep the center of force and consequently the bulk of the sail down nice and close to the deck.

Wandering Star,

Thanks for the tip. I'm now on the yahoo group, I'll check them out. I've heard good things about polytarp sails (ok, most of the good things have ended in "for the price", but hey, that's important too) and I will probably play with the idea if only for giggles. I presume if you've got a sail you like there's a more permanent way to set it up than just duct tape?

Thanks for all your ideas guys

-- James

[WanderingStar]

Some people stitch polytarp. Mine failed when the tape came apart. But it only took me about an hour to build, and I think eight bucks of material.
Be careful that your rig doesn't overstress your kayak. My first rig was from Balogh Sail Designs, installed in an ultralight glued lapstrake double paddle canoe. In a fresh breeze she flew, but also split the hull along a lap. I built the lug for a lower center of effort and less leverage. You might ask CLC if they think the boat can take a rig. I've seen very simple kayak sails on Ebay, just a small nylon sail set between poles that attach to the deck, and tend like a twin line kite.

[klem]

jbarros,

I have never paddled the CLC night heron but have paddled a lot of boats with similar lines. My honest opinion is that you will have trouble going to windward in the night heron. The boat looks to move through the water well but I doubt that it would have the stability to carry any amount of sail. On sailboats, we rely on stability from the boats hull form and wide beam or from the ballast in the keel. The kayak doesn't really have either of these. The only two practical ways that I can see to overcome this is to get a lower performance beamier boat which would be frustrating to paddle or to turn it into a cat or tri with something detachable. I can't imagine trying to hand roll a boat with a mast and sail if you ever flipped it over.

I think that the rudder and lee board shouldn't be too hard.

Regarding the sail rig, you mentioned that you are concerned with keeping it low which is good. Since the CE needs to be near the CLR, you will probably find that the mast is somewhere just ahead of where you sit and the sail overlaps your sitting position. If you have a boom, you will have to raise the foot of the sail considerably so you might be able to get away with a loose footed sail and ducking when tacking. This would require a traveler to get good sheeting angles but there is no reason that it shouldn't perform well until you are off the wind when a boom would hold the sail out more. The CLC kits are nice but I doubt they were designed with supporting a mast in mind meaning that the deck and hull are very thin and their joint does not have a lot of reenforcing. I would think that tying together the deck and hull with a little bit more structure around the mast and having the tube you describe connected to both would be a necessity. You would need to make sure that it doesn't get in the way of your legs.

You could always use a control kite which I have seen done many of times.

Good luck.

[2Gringos]

Please, tell me more about this kite idea..

[jbarros]

Klem,

I like the kite idea, and frankly, from looking at them, a lot of them seem cheaper than what I was planning to spend on the sail and rigging, so it might be a great first step for me, and if I decide to go further, well, it will get relegated to "spinaker" duty. (not a horrible fate)

Regarding stability, I was planning on treating the kayak like a dinghy, and just edging/shifting my weight to compensate for the sails pull. I figgure, if people can keep a mosquito upright, I should be able to get a kayak with a few sq/ft of sail to stay up... or so the theory in my head went.

I was originally planning the trimaran route, starting with the CLC sailrig kit, but when I look at it, there are a number of modifications I wanted to make, which ended up with almost an entire new boat (center boards in/lee boards next to both amas, a dual rudder system, also on the amas, a sail system which left the actual kayak unmolested, some method of decoupling the kayak from the sail rig on the water so that I can anchor it, etc) This actually is looking like more and more of an "interesting" project, but before letting myself get all worked up and excited, I wanted to step back and take a look for a much simpler, easier solution which would still achieve the primary goal of being able to sail out to the islands, then paddle around, and finally sail back.

Thanks for all the advice.

-- James

[jbarros]

Wandering Star,

Thanks for sharing your experience. I'm sorry the boat split, that's horrible. I spoke to John at CLC, and while we didn't get into much detail about the rigs, his primary concern, for the places I want to sail, is that the Night Heron is a low volume boat, and it will have a tendency to punch through waves instead of bobbing over them. While this isn't a big deal at paddle speed, with the amount of canvas we were talking about, it could be a much greater issue. This is another reason I was thinking instead of using a large canvas tri, I might want to try a simpler on kayak sail system, which only powers me up with about the same type of force I'd generate paddling. There's still the problem of the vector of force (paddling lifts slightly, sailing applies some downforce towards the bow, and obviously rotational force)

Right now I'm just pondering ideas and waiting for my refund check so I can get started on my kayak

-- James