Canoe And Kayak Nudist
For those who enjoy paddling down a river, or across a lake or chasing a shark in a canoe or kayak. Share your experience or encounter even if it's with the game warden.
Sail rigs for canoes and kayaks
Return to DiscussionsWhen I was working with Scouts, we had 4 17 foot canoes and we had a build session where we cut Leeboards, tarps, and 2x4 pieces. We got Radio Shack antenna masts for the masts, sand-filled and capped pvc pipe for the booms. We made a bracket of a long 2x4 and a shorter one underneath, connected together by bolts and wing nuts. The top 2x4 stuck out a few inches over the sides, and the leeboards were bolted onto those. The mast went through a hole in the center of bott 2x4s and there was a small assembly of one 2x4 piece with a hole for the mast and another solid piece under that one so the mast could sit in this assembly without wanting to poke a hole in the canoe floor.
We took 10x10 reinforced plastic tarps (the quissentential "blue tarp"), and cut them diagonally in two. We put pulleys at the top of the mast for raising and lowering the sail. The boom sheet was the only control line. We used one of the paddles for a rudder.
The achilles heel for this design was that the sails tended to fray along the cut. We discussed hemming that edge, but we only used the canoes a few times a year and we just got new tarps each year.