Took the sail set up out for some testing on a rainy afternoon. The goal here isn’t so much a performance assessment as just evaluating the functionality of the rigging. I ditched the various in-line tensioners that I had bought to try to make the stay attachment and tensioning quicker. It’s a good idea in theory, but every one of them had some unworkable flaw. Right now it’s just set up with taut line hitches, although I’m gonna have to find a tensioning knot that’s equally quick to tie and adjust but a little bit more secure.
Sailing a kayak is tricky because by definition you’re doing it in rough water, you have to juggle the paddle and the sheet, capsize is much more likely in general and self rescues are much harder.
Much like larger boat sailing, rescue should be at least possible but most of your safety margin really rests on handling the boat well. Little things like the momentary tangle between the sail hold down bungee and the sheet you see here can be a huge problem when you’re a mile offshore and it’s blowing 20.
I like the clean simplicity of the set up so far, although I still need to work out the sheet cleat. I like this to be releasable with the blind swipe of a hand in an emergency and for various reasons the open clam cleats that I use on my canoe aren’t going to work here.
I need to figure out how far forward I can mount this rig before the stay angle becomes too acute, which unfortunately is going to involve perforating one of my new boats. After that I’ll build three or four masts and a handful of different sail shapes to experiment with the aspect ratio and see if it makes a difference.
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