wrote: >Do these sail contraptions one sees in Sea Kayaker Magazine work? >Ever tried one? Looks like fun... ----------------------- It IS fun, especially if you can find a place where the wind is more or less consistently blowing your direction. We've had our best luck sailing through some of the long channels on the west coast of Vancouver Island where the walls of the channel guide the wind right along the waterway. In some cases, we've been able to sail for hours -- paddling nary a stroke -- at a speed faster than we would paddle by hand. The problem with sailing on the open water is that the wind can shift around, sometimes gusting from the sides, requiring some care to avoid a sudden capsize. It can still be done, especially under the right conditions, just a bit more nerve-wracking. My sail is a fairly simple triangular design, with just enough curve built in to form a gentle pocket to catch the wind. It's homemade, copied from a friend's store-bought sail (but slightly enlarged). Being the frugal do-it-yourself type, even my mast is homemade from a piece of bamboo, with the bottom three inches of the hollow bamboo filled with Fixall (a patching compound used by drywallers, etc.) to strengthen the base where most of the stress is. (The Fixall was a design refinement gleened from my original prototype, which snapped at the base.) The mast is about 5 feet long +/-. The top corner of the sail attaches to a cord that runs through a simple clip at the end of the mast, then down the deck where I attach it to a jam cleat. The two lower corners of the sail connect via cord to C-clips mounted to the right & left of the cockpit, with quick release knots in case the wind changes quickly (which happens). Most of the time I don't try to paddle when sailing, preferring to kick-back and enjoy the scenery, with my paddle resting on the sides of my cockpit ready to brace. Last summer, we had a group of seven kayakers, four with sails, paddling through a passage in the Bella Bella area. We secured the boats to each other side by side and just let the wind blow us all along, while passing a two bags of wine and a variety of snacks back and forth. We didn't quite move at full cruising speed but no one seemed to care! --- Evan *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.gasp-seakayak.net/paddlewise/ ***************************************************************************Received on Mon Sep 28 1998 - 14:11:30 PDT
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