Sam says that his drawings are self-explanatory and that "There's
no point in putting dimensions on my drawings... The whole thing is
pretty flexible." Since they necessarily vary on your canoe, his canoe
and someone else's canoe. I agree. As soon as spring comes, I'm off to
the bamboo patch to find tripod mast pieces.
note: click on any transparent image for a larger
GIF where it's easier to see the details.
His rig included tholepins for rowing with 7-foot oars,
but that doesn't change the utility of the simple tripod-and-lashing
sail rig. As you will see he wound up steering with the leeboard--
shades of Yakaboo -- whenever he wanted to go to windward. I
have quoted from the article to help illustrate what Sam was about when
he designed this:
 "What is proposed is a simple
system of sticks, string, and available fabric which will put you
afloat anywhere in a paddling/rowing/sailing craft you've learned to
handle well.
"...all parts would have to be made [on site], clamped, or
lashed to a borrowed canoe at a distant place, [so] these things had to
be solved: a mast and the means to support it; a system for steering;
and a simply-constructed sail.
"I looked about for a craft of good hull form that we
could own, rent, borrow, (or replace) just about anywhere. It took some
soul girding to put the proceeds from the sale of a perfectly good
wooden sailing dory into an 18' Grumman aluminum canoe. But this is
where we were at... Normally it lived right on top of the station
wagon."
•
"I suppose that I might have done myself a favor by going
out and buying the proper Grumman accessories... A friend let me try
his canoe with all the Grumman stuff screwed onto it. It rowed well,
sailed tolerably, but all of it rattled and had the feeling of aluminum
pipes and plates mechanically attached to an otherwise clean hull."
•
"What I wanted for this boat was a permanent rowing frame
that did not jut out, and an effective sailing rig so simple that it
could be set or stowed without filling the boat with gear... Our
objective was not to convert this hull, but to devise a small bag full
of tricks that might be applied to any canoe made available to us in a
distant place."
Frame from above.
"Some system had to be devised whereby the center strut
could be eliminated... In view of renting or borrowing a tin canoe at
some future date, I allowed myself the luxury of unscrewing the strut
temporarily, but whatever structure replaced it would have to be
clamped or lashed to the boat... [A] shelf timber was run under the
gunwale flange on the inside, a wale thick enough for the tholepins was
put on the outside, and [both held] by a cleat across the gunwale
amidships and by cleats across the boat directly over the remaining
quarter struts. Carriage bolts and wing nuts could be used [to
assemble] this rectangular frame [which] becomes like a crate which
clamps rigidly into the midship section of the canoe."
•
Frame, assembled.
"The tin canoe (as well as our wooden one, to which the same gear has
been applied without alteration) seems to be at its best as a sailing
craft when the breeze is a steady 10 to 20 knots. Both canoes, with two
people aboard, have been sailed with the full rig in winds estimated to
be 35 knots in puffs. Wind and bay chop do not seem to be a problem as
long as the wind is steady and the canoe is beating into it. The charm
departs [with] beam seas or skiddy downwind steering ... as the canoe
heads off. It's better to drop sail and row when caught out in such
stuff."
•
Leeboard broomstick.
The leeboard. -- "...simply an upright plank squeezed
between two parallel logs that are looped to the gunwales with
lashings. The board is pivoted fore and aft on a lashing let through a
hole in the center [and] propped stiffly upright by a broomstick cut to
fit the exact distance between the upper tip of the "lever" [or handle
of the leeboard] and the opposite gunwale of the boat. Tied to the
gunwale at one end, and through a hole in the top of the "lever" at the
other, the broomstick prevents the leeboard from being forced against
the hull on one tack or pulled away from it on the other. [The board]
stays put on both tacks and can be forgotten unless you are steering
the boat with it. Compression between the parallel logs keeps the plank
from twisting or splitting."
•
Four lashings and three sticks hold the leeboard
in place.
"The parallel logs can be broomsticks or furring strips. They too are
thonged together through holes at their tips and are lashed (with these
thongs) tightly to the gunwale at their ends. Spacer blocks or
additional turns of the forward seizing between the gunwale and the
logs may be necessary to bring the logs (and the board) parallel to the
centerline of the boat. Precise alignment of board and boat appears to
be uncritical."
•
Steering. -- "Steering with a paddle is easy and
fun... The paddle is held over the leeward quarter where it is snugged
against the boat by the sideslipping action.
"Downwind in heavy air... the canoe yawed badly, it
rolled, and the helmsman needed two hands for the steering paddle with
nothing to spare to hold the sheet. The yawing proved controllable by
moving aft and settling the stern, which in turn canceled some of the
roll.
"On a very windy day just a few weeks ago, the canoe
demonstrated rather plainly how she wished to be steered under sail.
Working her to windward through a crowded anchorage with a paddle
overside on her lee quarter, I found her performance to be erratic. At
times she spurted ahead while laying very close to the wind. At other
times, conditions being equal, she poked along while sagging off and
acting as though she had a tin can nailed to her tin bottom. As I
paddled her about at the end of a tack, the leeboard, released of
sideslip pressure, rotated forward in the slackened lashings of the
gunwale logs. A hard puff hit her just then, and without moving through
the water much at all she rounded smartly up and went back on the old
tack. As the wind streaked by she kept rounding up, back and forth,
until I got the board back to its normal position. Then off she went,
without a helmsman, footing swiftly and without deviation on the
closest windward heading I'd seen her take. If I rotated the foot of
the board while she was sailing, she rounded up. If I raked it aft, she
fell off.
"With the wind abaft the beam and the leeboard trailing,
some control can be had by moving crew weight aft and by leaning the
boat one way or the the other to deflect her head with the bow wave.
The paddle, however, must be used downwind."
•
Mast basics.
Spars. -- "The most workable mast [is] a short,
light tripod made of spruce rippings approximately the size of broom
handles... strung together at the upper end and thonged to three spots
in the boat at the lower end... [while the] headstay rope pulls the
various legs into tension or compression and tightens the whole thing
into an extremely solid unit. As long as the legs are given some spread
it doesn't make much difference whether it's set symmetrically in the
boat or not.
"Furring strip standing alone or nailed together makes
fine spars for the first go-around. It's the cheapest wood in the
lumberyard."
•
Mast lashing.
Sails. -- "I've made many sails from 6-mil
polyethylene. Given tape reinforcement for stability, and draft
provided by the roaches, they've usually lasted me several seasons of
hard use and they've set as well as could be expected when cut by an
amateur. It took Susan and me about two hours to lay out, reinforce,
cut, and grommet the polyethylene spritsail for the canoe... The secret
of adhesion seems to be to clean the slightly waxy surface with alcohol
or some other solvent where the tape is to be applied. The grommets,
punched through successive layers of tape reinforcement rivet the
corners into unity. Our polyethylene sails have held up well to every
kind of summer wind without stretch of the leech or migration of the
grommets."
•
Etc. -- "This is the vessel of our little fleet
that we can count on to be with as at a given time and place and to
carry us the distance planned. For a fully functional 18-footer,
there's been very little money involved."
..
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