Thread: Drop-in Sail for Quick Canoe

It's been remarked in a few places that BETH's rudder is quite small. What factors in the design keep it effective, given the points above about the foils wanting to be nice and long?

Soon I'll be making up the foils for the drop-in sailing rig. I'm planning to follow the OZ-Racer design, since that seems able to be a "traded up" in future.

MIK, with a 39-odd square foot sail in mind, do you have any recommendations for beefing up the spars over the dimensions in the drop-in rig drawings?

My timber is 2.4 metres and, not wanting to waste any, I'm thinking of leaving all the spars at 8 foot long. I figure more useful later maybe.

I would say adding 6mm do the diameters would just about do it.

MIK

ok,

Not sure if I'll explain this well, but I'll give it a go.

I'm guessing that when you cut the 'spar bend' into the head of the lugsail that you don't just pluck a figure out of thin air.
Same for the draft you put in for head and foot.

I can't figure out how to work out these allowances, and even if I make the yard and boom, and then test the amount of bend... what am I testing against?

In other words, cutting to allow for spar bend for a lug sail, and cutting draft for a lug sail... what is the concept behind it?

(and yes, after a month of being distracted by 'floods and pouring rain', I'm ready to mark out Pauls QC155 lug sail )

I have some numbers but they are on my broken computer at the moment.

I've got to the point of building the drop-in sailing rig where I have to think about just where things go, such as which side of the mast is the boom going to be?

I gather that Tradition says that the boom and sail dress to starboard. MIK's BETH, PDRs and GIS pics say starboard. But the GIS plans I have (no, haven't built it... yet) clearly state that the sail should be on the port side of the mast.

For some reason I've imagined the boom going to port, halyard cleat to starboard (possibly because I'm right handed) and the lee-board hanging out to port. The plans say opposite.

I doubt it makes much difference, really. Why did you do what you did?

Howdy,

With my later plans I just regularised the description so I wouldn't get confused discussing different boats.

BTW, Michael, can you email me and I will send you the bigger sail stuff. I have it here somewhere.

MIK

How effectively does the QC keel batten support the mast step? Does this longitudinal stiff member in any way lessen the need for reinforcing of the hull with fibreglass?

Not wanting to add weight unless useful and necessary.

Hi Michael,

The principle with the drop in rig regarding the hull is to try and hold the hull together against unexpected forces.

The rig itself is not really highly loaded. Mostly in bending which pushes the step and partner sideways.

However the halyard and downhaul do both push the mast down into the boat which could potentially overbend the bottom or open up the hull in some ways - that's why there is info on putting some unidirectional glass around the inside of kayak hulls. Just to eliminate the risk.

With the QC it is more easily achieved by either taking the step right across the width of the boat, or putting a mini ply bulkhead in that glues to either the back or front face of the step, goes across the boat and maybe 75mm up the hull sides. That would be able to take any sort of serious unexpected load.

One way of halving the load is that the downhaul needs to be attached to the partner (to keep the mast in the boat) but if the halyard cleat is on the side of the mast it reduces the compression on the mast by half. ie only one rope pulling the mast down rather than two.

MIK

I'm trundling along towards going for a sail. Leeboard and rudder foils, following OzRacer design, are almost finished, spars being varnished, almost ready to address the sail.

I had a modicum of difficulty with the foils flexing a bit while being planed to shape, despite being screwed down in the flat section. I guess the combination of Western Red Cedar board, screw size and thickness of chipboard base wasn't stiff enough. Dunno. I may be able to fair the surface with the (West) microlight filler and sand back to a more accurate profile. Not sure.

I'm considering making up a lee-board box after the manner of the rudder, so that it's a lee-dagger-board. I have the impression that would be more rigid than the swinging lee-board. I'd give the swinging board a go though, for the sake of feeling how the balance changes.

I've collected more pictures as I've gone along that I plan to put in a blog rather than taking up too much space here. Trouble is that time spent documenting is time robbed from the shed!

Howdy,
I started to make the sail for my QC. See photos. I cannot wait the Spring to start building the mast and thwart.

Attachment 161774 Attachment 161775
The material is some kind of dacron sailcloth.

Attachment 161776 Attachment 161777 Attachment 161778

I made the patches and stitched them together with two sided tape. Next step is the sewing.
Cheers
Csaba - Mezix (Hungary)
PS. As a rudder I am thinking about something like this:
Attachment 161779

Originally Posted by Mezix

I started to make the sail for my QC. See photos.

Wow! Looks great! Thanks for photos!

It is looking good. What is the area of your sail?