Testing My Homemade Sailing Rig (720p)

Описание: Transferred from an old Vimeo account.

What I really wanted was a bigger sail those light wind days, but was denied from buying the 50 sqr ft sail from Solway Dory as these were reserved for their expensive fibreglass sailing canoes, which always led the fleet at meets!

I decided to buy a second hand yacht sail and cut it down to size to make something smaller. While this in itself doesn't sound too impressive, it starts to become clear when you realise that the boat I planned to use it on is a 16 foot plastic canoe!

I already have 3-sails, a 10 square foot storm sail, which I use for some extra power when I am just out paddling, a 35 square foot Lug sail and a 44 square foot Bermudan sail.

What I really needed was a sail around 50 to 70 square feet for light to medium winds.

As I wanted to use the boom from my Bermudan 44 rig, this determined the foot of the sail, so I just had to decide how tall the sail should be in order to obtain a sail approximately 70 square feet. Well 17 foot 6" should you ask and a mast length of 21 feet.

Lucky for me, my wife is a seamstress and I am an ex aircraft engineer, so we had the tools and experience to build a sail and rig.

This video was taken when I tested the sail and rig at Rutland Water in gentle 10 to 15 mph winds. :-)

I later used the big sail during a meet in the Lake District during very light winds and left everyone in my wake, even the owners of Solway Dory who had made themselves extra big sails! Unfortunately I didn't feel welcome to their meets shortly after that!