Excited to be working on the kayak sail system again

It’s exciting to be working on the kayak sail system again. I wasn’t able to get the design finished last winter but I’m really hoping to release a plan set this year.

This is basically a refined version of the same pop-up sail that I’ve been using on my canoes for the last four years, but the reason it’s taking so long to adapt for my kayaks is because kayak sailing is quite dangerous, and I want to release the safest possible sail system.

A big part of that has been trying to figure out a way to make the F1 run straight downwind when pressed hard. This is important because currently in gusts higher than 20 mph the kayak rounds up onto a beam reach, making it very hard to control and also very hard to drop the sail in an emergency. I’m hoping the flip down skeg I showed yesterday will solve this problem. The LPB does better in these conditions.

I modify a common micro clam cleat by cutting off the fairlead so in an emergency I can just blindly swipe the deck with my hand and release the halyard or the sheet. This is useful in sudden extreme gusts or when you’re underwater and have to do that before you can roll.

I designed the sail based on a concept that’s been kicking around for decades and was significantly refined by my now deceased friend Mick MacRobb, founder of Flat Earth Kayak Sails. People have also put Falcon Kayak Sails on my kayaks and are happy with them, in my experience to Falcon Sails are more powerful and more controllable, but I’ve decided to stick with this style because it’s safer and it’s compatible with both my kayaks and my Canoes, which means that someone could build one of these (or just buy one from Flat Earth) and use it on both boats.

So far I haven’t found a retailer that sells small amounts of a good 2 oz sailcloth so I’m just using ripstop right now which kind of sucks. I have some better cloth to experiment with and might buy a roll if we end up making a kit for these.

Thanks to Liz for sewing the sail!