When I was designing the pack canoes I came up with the idea for a little pop-up sail that would hinge off of the lower part of the stem, using the end of the canoe itself as the mast partners. It folds unobtrusively out of the way and stays in the canoe all of the time, ready to catch the occasional favorable breeze. The whole thing worked out brilliantly, letting me sail up to 4 knots and point just a tiny bit higher than a beam reach, which isn’t terrible for an 11 1/2 foot canoe.
Of course once you’re going 4 knots, you wish you were going 5, So I spent the better part of half of the year messing around with tiny foils and rudders, and expensive sails that just added clutter and aggravation before coming full circle to absolute simplicity. In the process I gained a real appreciation for the surprising amount of drag even the tiniest foil adds to any sail craft.
This is LOW performance sailing but it’s also kind of addictive. I can steer the boat anywhere from dead downwind all the way up to a stall just by shifting my body weight slightly. I can also steer around obstacles by either quickly sheeting in, or doing something you should never do in any larger boat which is sheet out to let the curve of the sail get forward of the mast. (notice how the bow rapidly swings when I do that to avoid the tree)
With nothing but the hull shape to resist leeway, however, keeping way on is everything. Without boat speed it’s just a crappy little downwind rig but with a little bit of speed and it bites the water nicely on a beam reach.
Sailing at such a tiny scale really shows how abrupt movements spoil the flow of the wind and water. For example if I know there is a gust coming, I can lean forward and sheet in simultaneously and rather than being blown off the wind I will accelerate, but if I do both of these things smoothly with perfect timing I can accelerate much faster. It becomes a dance of light stomach crunches and tiny pulls on the sheet.
Given my preference I’d rather be blasting across a bay hiked out on a catamaran, but with an overall cost of $100 and a set up time of 15 seconds this little rig has a pretty good fun to hassle ratio!
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