Had the light sail rig (carbon masts and rip stop sails) out for some testing last night on the canoe catamaran. I was definitely cringing when a couple of the gusts approached 20 but so far neither of the carbon fiber masts have snapped. 5 mph in roughly 10mph of wind ain’t bad performance for 3 meters of canvas either. I probably won’t get to editing the GoPro footage until this winter but there were definitely some exciting moments when the bigger gusts combined with the bigger powerboat wakes!
The thing I like most about this set up is that even with the boats catamaraned together we can still steer with the sails within about a 45° window of downwind. For me this is a lot nicer than death gripping the tiller, and it also helps keep the speed up. The steering oar works but honestly we barely touch it.
Also to preempt the inevitable questions about upwind sailing and leeboards, yes those things are absolutely possible with the addition of about 70 more hours of work and three or four more thousand dollars (if you want it to work well that is).
By comparison, this cute little downwind rig that tucks out of the way when you’re not using it ends up costing about 200 bucks and about a day to build. Something that I feel like everyone has to learn for themselves is that if you really want sailboat performance you should build a sailboat and not ruin a perfectly good rowboat, kayak or canoe chasing after performance that you’re probably not gonna get anyways.
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