Me = Recalcitrant

I haven't gotten much done on the boat lately.
I was very excited about the potential sailing rigs after my last post, but significantly less so today.
I got a very thoughtful e-mail from Fred about the various potentialities of sailing rigs, which I will quote in part:

One of the more compelling aspects of any sailing rig is its structural and organizational flexibility. A limited set of basic components can afford the ability to adapt to all the compounding variables of load and trim and wind and water. For your boat, without the benefit of a time-tested specific sail plan, any design will be inherently speculative and prototypical; it would not suit to impose a rigid system.

Eminently logical, no doubt. And it matches this article I found about setting up a sailing canoe rig in many important points.

I will post the proposed plan from Fred here, if only to have it in the log. Once again, if you are not up to speed with your Chapman Piloting and Seamanship, you may want to skip down a bit.

So if I could presume to suggest the outline of a plan........

It appears in the official, idealized catalog photo of your canoe that there are occasional clearances between the ribs and the bottom. It was not clear in your photo of your dry fit mock-up if this wold be the case with your boat. If not, some sort of similar feature would be exceedingly useful--it could be as simple as an evenly spaced(6-8" apart) series of 3/8" holes through the ribs.

Beyond that, you would need a few spars of different lengths for the parts. It could all be of similar stock, say 2"x 2" or thereabouts, squarish rather than rectangular. And you would need a fair amount of 1/4" line, decent double-braided-type marine stuff, good for knot-tying.

The mast foot: This would be a length of wood long enough to comfortably span two of the ribs, nominally along the centerline of the bottom. It would have a few holes drilled through--evenly spaced every 3-4", a foot or so to either side of the centerpoint, big enough(thus slightly oversized) to accommodate a 1/2" bolt. The mast foot would be set across two of the ribs--on the centerline, offset, or diagonal--and lashed down. The lashing and the holes would allow positioning adjustability fore and aft, as well as side to side, if desired, for the location of the mast.

The mast: A spar of maybe 10'--these specifics are where your sea trials will become telling. If it starts long and proves awkward, you can always cut it shorter. This spar would have at each end a hole the same size as the hole in the mast foot, with the exact placement allowing an end to bolt to the mast foot without the mast itself touching the bottom of the boat. (The other hole will serve as a point for tying on the sheave for raising the yard.) The bolt could be a nice stainless steel or brass hex head, washered on both sides, and hand-tightened with a wingnut. This will secure the mast to the foot, and still allow it to pivot, perhaps useful for stepping and striking and trimming. I would envision stepping the mast by resting it across the bow and aligning the bolt holes, and then swinging the mast up(or, in reverse, striking it down to the deck, as it were) into its desired trim.

The gunwale brace: A spar as long as the beam width of the canoe, plus several inches. This would be set across the gunwales, positioned as needed--square to the centerline or not--and lashed down. The mast, swung up, would then lash to it. The extra outboard length might eventually come in handy for stays and fairleads, or even a daggerboard point. At this point, too, you might find that a backstay will answer--a simple line from that hole at the top of the mast to somewhere stern-ish, rib 'C' maybe, or another gunwale brace(it would just be another uncarpentered stick after all) forward of the steersman.

The yard: A stick of the same stuff, 8'to 10'? with a simple bridle tied to a line passed through the mast sheave. Hoist. Tie off to the gunwale brace.

The sail: I'm serious here--a shower curtain. I think the size(tub-style) and material(lightweight, moderately impermeable) would be about right, it would be inexpensive, it would expendable, and it would be reinforced and grommetted along its top edge and ready to be tied onto the yard. You would only need to add grommet points to the corners that would become the clews. If it were too big, length or width, you could simply cut off what you didn't like; too small, tie on another one, overlapping to suit. The sheets, secured at the clews, would pass outboard under the gunwale brace to the stern.

The article I referenced above about setting up a canoe for sailing stresses many of the same points:

The placement of you and your sail rig in the canoe is part science and part of the art of sailing well. In order to sail safely and under control, it is essential to obey the physical laws of balance. . . The mast step should be placed in relation to the location of the leeboard thwart and vice-versa for a balanced rig. It is recommended that you start by using secure clamps to attach the leeboard thwart to the gunwales so that you can make adjustments.

I would like to state for the record that I do not like these answers.

Fred puts it best:

I don't know if this is a definitive design, but I hope that its essence is relative simplicity and flexibility. Ideally it might provide the capacity to allow you to complete your boat without building yourself into a corner, so to speak. If you were, for example, to forgo your sailing ambitions, you would only be left with four unused sticks and some rope(and a shower curtain), rather than an integral structural modification.

I want to build in my mast step. I want it to be part of the boat. It is less important to me that it works properly than that it looks good. I have already mentally designed the mast step, and some parts of the rig itself. Will they "work" according to some arbitrary "laws of physics"? Answer: I don't care.

Is this smart of me?
No.
Do I care about that, either?
No. It's my boat. That's the best part of building a boat. It doesn't have to make sense to any of you.

I do, very much like this last bit from Fred:

Some questions:
Does any of this make sense?
Can you sew?
Do you have a small grommet kit?
Do you have a passing familiarity with certain knots--bowline, clove hitch, sheet bend, trucker's hitch, maybe a sheepshank, and various lashing methods? It is always good to remember that rope work, so fundamental to any mariner, can be aesthetically pleasing and deeply satisfying, as well as profoundly useful and effective.

In answer:
- Yes, it makes sense. (Even though I don't like it.)
- I can sew. Kind of. Not really.
- No, but I would like to have a small grommet kit.
- No, I no know knots. Although I truly want to. In all sincerity. That is something that I do want to come from this whole boat thing. I want to have nice ropes with intricate knots. I don't know any, but I will learn some.