which are very fairly
proportional to the power of the boats. These are canoes
of the RCC dimensions, D, however, being reduced in the
longer craft below the RCC maximum, which is more than
they could utilize with any good result while retaining
canoe form. With less sail than this, a canoe will hardly
sail and be under good control in light airs, and at the
same time it is no more than she ought to be able a carry
in a very tolerable amount of wind in smooth water. I
would not, therefore, depart very widely from these
areas, unless for special reasons, in first planning
sails for a canoe. If they prove too large, they can
easily be cut down, and if too small, it is not
impossible to enlarge them while nearly new, and even a
new suit of sails is no great matter of expense, the old
ones being useful as a spare suit for winter sailing,
etc.
The next question is, in what form to
apply these areas to the canoe. The almost unanimous
verdict of experienced canoeists is in favor of two
sails: main and mizen. I have heard some few canoeists,
however, object to the mizen as adding unnecessarily to
the gear. Now, in the first place, the addition is
extremely small; a mizen need have nothing but a sheet
and some kind of a brail and I hope to show that this
extra gear is well worth carrying. A greater area of sail
can be safely put upon a canoe in two sails than in one,
and thus greater speed may be obtained ; the handiness is
greater, especially in squalls, than with the one sail,
while the mizen forms a useful trysail for sailing in
very hard winds. Some of these propositions may want a
little proof, which shall be attempted to be given in a
few words.
Let it be supposed that a canoe has a
mainsail of 45 feet and a mizen of 15. It is proposed to
throw all this area into a single mainsail. Now the
mainsail, if well designed for a canoe, has already all
the area which can be obtained from a given height and
length. We can, therefore, only increase it by adding to
the head, to the leech, or to both. Now additional canvas
at the head of the sail makes the stability diminish out
of all proportion to the increase of area and weight,
while adding to the leech is nearly as bad, the whole
weight of the extra spars and cloth being carried
outboard to leeward, just where it is not wanted ;
besides lengthening the spars beyond stowable dimensions.
*
* The heeling effect of the weight of sails in
a canoe is enormous. I once sailed a sea passage of
some 30 miles to windward in a canoe who mast had
accidentally got a twist of 5 or 6 degrees to port. On
the port tack she was as stiff under whole sail as on
the starboard with a reef. It would almost be
worthwhile to devise some plan for listing the mast to
windward. The cause of the greatly improved sailing
was, 1st, the removal of the weight of sails further
to windward, and 2nd, that the burying effect of the
sails is reduced, and, at small angles of heel, even
converted into a lifting effect.
Then as to handiness, by the use of
the two sails a canoe can be almost steered without her
rudder and if she has an after centre-board we may leave
out the "almost." I have made a canoe steer herself like
a toy boat for 5 or 6 miles together, in a steady breeze
and open water. But it is in a squall that the full value
of the rig is to be appreciated, enabling the canoe to
luff and to spill her mainsail at the same time, and even
to lower mainsail altogether, without quite losing way or
control of the boat. This will be seen more fully when we
come to the handling of a canoe under sail.
Having determined to carry mainsail
and mizen, it remains to decide on the rig. In this we
are limited somewhat by the peculiar requirements of the
canoe. For example, we cannot have any spar more than 7
or 8 feet long, according to the length of the canoe and
the distance between her bulkheads.*
* The use of a spar deck does not affect this
question as a spar cannot be raised to the level of
the spar deck till it is wholly below. A little length
however may be gained by having a watertight recess in
one of the bulkheads near the bottom to take the ends
of spars.
This limitation of length has one
great advantage : it checks the tendency to carry the
sails too high or too far out of the boat, the evils of
which were noticed above. The use of battens in the
sails, Chinese fashion, enables a larger area to be got
with any given length of spars, and has other great
advantages, enabling the sails to hold a better wind, and
to be spilled without flapping or eased off till nearly
spilled, when they will not shake as even the best cut
ordinary sails will do, but continue to propel the boat.
Also more sail can be carried, in the ratio of about 7 to
5. The following designs, when made for battened sails,
can be easily adapted to plain sails, but at a great loss
of area and efficiency.
The position of the sails in a canoe,
fore and aft, cannot be accurately determined except by
trial. The usual plan for boats is to find the centre of
lateral resistance, that is the centre in a fore and aft
direction of the vertical longitudinal section of her
whole immersed body, including rudder and centre-boards,
and so to arrange the sails that their centre is in a
line above this point, or a little fore or aft of it
according to circumstances. For the canoe this plan may
do to start with, keeping the centre of the sails rather
too far aft than forward, as it is easy to reduce the
mizen a little if she has too much after sail. A full
bowed canoe will like her sails well forward, a fine one,
more aft. Also, more after sail may be given if an after
centre-board is carried.
Lug sails are by far the most
generally used in canoes. There are three ordinary forms
of lug, the dipping, standing and balance. The dipping
lug, though one of the best sails in the world for strong
crews in large open boats, when very short tacks are not
required, may be dismissed at once as unsuitable for a
canoe. To lower the sail for going about would be a
nuisance, and the shifting of the tack would be an almost
insuperable difficulty. The standing or working lug has
the tack of the sail abaft the mast, while the balance
lug has it forward of the mast. The latter must have a
boom, with the former it is optional, but a canoe should
have a boom with either. The balance lug sets the flatter
of the two in ordinary sails, but when battens are used
the difference in this respect is little or none. With
the working lug the boom can be topped up, which cannot
be done with the lug, unless either tack or halliards are
slack.
The accompanying illustration
represents a working
lug, with battens, with a maximum length of 7 feet 6
inches, which would suit a canoe able to stow 8 feet
spars, 6 inches at least being required to allow for
stretching, etc. The scale being rather small to work
from, it will be better to take the dimensions from the
following account.
Luff
|
4 feet.
|
Head
|
7 feet 6 inches.
|
Foot
|
7 feet 6 inches.
|
Length on lower
batten
|
7 feet 4 inches;
|
on second and
third
|
6 feet 9 inches.
|
Hoist
|
6 feet 4 inches.
|
Yard slung 3 feet from
weather earing.
|
|
Clew to peak
|
11 feet 2 inches.
|
Area
|
47 square feet.
|
Area without battens, the
leach
being straight from clew to peak
|
39 square feet.
|
The mast should be a grown spar 1-3/4
inches square at heel, and reduced to l-3/8 inches at
head. It should be left its full size for about 8 inches
above deck, nothing but the corners being taken off. The
yard, boom and battens are of bamboo. If a similar sail
is to be used for a mizen about half or three-fifths of
the dimensions of the mainsail should be used, and only
two battens.
I propose to give a full account of the
cutting fitting and rigging of this sail. The same will
apply to most of the other sails to be described, and
where there is any difference it will be pointed
out.
The material should be bleached cotton
sheeting, which can be had 9 feet wide, is very strong,
and does not readily mildew. If specially light sails are
required, calico must be used, but this is narrow and
must be joined. Seaming the selvages without any doubling
or turning in, is the best way to join them. In a sail
with straight leach, the selvage should form the leach,
but when rounded, as in the present sail, the selvage
should run in about the same direction as a line from
clew to peak. The edges should be bound with tape, narrow
on leach, wide on head and foot, and on luff a double
thickness. The "pockets" for the battens may be made of
the wide tape, or of strips of the sheeting. All tapes
should be sewn on rather slack, as the cloth will stretch
and the tape will not.
The gear required for this sail is as
follows : sheet, halliard, tack, topping-lift, two reef
lines, down-haul and "jackstay." For a mizen, the same,
less one reef line and perhaps down-haul. This sounds a
long list, but it will be seen that no sail in a canoe
can be efficiently handled with much less. The halliard
should be fast to a traveller on the mast, for which
purpose a hollow brass curtain ring is good, being
strong, very light and easily obtained. Only do not
forget to take out the eye which is screwed into the
ring, and smooth off any roughness on the inside with a
file. The halliard then passes through a block, which is
equipped with a toggle by which it can be attached to the
yard, then through a block at masthead, and another at
foot of mast, and aft to hand. This arrangement of the
traveller allows the yard to come down well on deck when
lowered, and keeps it well up to the mast when hoisted.
It is the invention of Mr. E.B. Tredwen, RCC. The sketch
shows this and the masthead arrangements. The halliard
block should be fixed aloft by a wire strop round the
masthead, kept from slipping down by a chock on the fore
side. A little brass screw eye above the strop keeps it
from falling off when the mast is stowed away. The block
at deck should be a cheek block on side of
mast.
The tack should be toggled to the boom
about 3 inches from the fore end, and lead aft through a
block. The topping lifts are hooked or toggled to boom,
lead through two little blocks seized to the masthead
strop, and down and aft like the halliard. Whether
'patent' reefing gear is used or not there must be reef
pennants leading from the luff, unless the canoeist is
willing to lower his sail, haul it aft, reef, and
re-hoist.
The sail is here shown with a very
simple reefing gear, the invention of Mr. W. Baden
Powell, and described by him as follows:
"The reefing gear will almost
speak for itself. I have used it constantly, not only
in canoes, but in boats, and after fitting it on
numerous ways, I have come to look upon that shown in
the drawing as the most successful and sure working
plan. The reef-line, in the first place, is woven
cord, dressed with light coat of boiled linseed oil,
in order to prevent it shrinking, stretching, or
swelling under the influence of weather or water.
The after part of the earing is
fastened to the boom by a clench, or by forming an eye
by sewing the end back luck to the standing part, and
then seizing the eye to the boom. Then lead the reef
earing up through brass rings, which are firmly
stitched on the sail on patches, and through the
block F at after end of the batten
D; then through a thimble or ring stropped in
above the next f block in on the batten,
then through the sister block G,
and back to and through the last mentioned block
F, and down through the rings E, and fasten
to the boom as before said.
When the sail is fully hoisted the
sister block G should rest nearly against
block F, about an inch off. Next turn to and
reeve the fore part of the reef earing. Make the
standing part fast by clenching it through the cringle
or eyelet hole on the luff of the sail at e (as
shown in the rigging plan); then take it away aft in
line with the batten, and reeve it through the
block G; lead forward again to and through F
at fore end of batten; then down through the rings
to and through block abaft the mast, and into
hand.
"The hand reef line H is
fast to the batten D, and leads down through
rings on the sail and a ring on the boom, and is
finished off by having a ring spliced into its own
end. This line is used for snugging that part of the
sail where the reef gear does not come, and the ring
at the end of H is in such case taken hold of
by means of a boat hook till brought into hand and is
hitched to the cleat N on the boom. The hand
reef line may also be used when the sail has to be
shortened quickly for a short passing squall, and then
shaken out again."
Mr. Powell applied it to a balanced
lug, and I have had to alter one or two words in his
description to make it suit a working lug which it suits
even better than the balance lug, requiring two less
blocks in the lead. For the balance lug there is another
and more suitable way of reeving the reef gear. The
second reef, and the reef in the mizen, may be fitted in
precisely the same manner.
If the reefing gear is not used, luff
reef-pennants must be fitted to the fore end of each
batten, and lead precisely as the hauling part of the
reef gear, the after part of the reef being tied down by
the ordinary points.
The down-haul is fast to the sling of
the yard, and leads through a block on deck 2 feet abaft
mast ; it should never be omitted, as it may be the
saving of the gear, the ship, or even the crew. The sail
may come down of itself 99 times, but the 100th time
something will prevent it, of course just when it is
wanted to act like a flash of gunpowder.
The "jackstay" is a name given by
canoeists to a line from the masthead to the boom, which
keeps the latter from falling on deck when the sail is
lowered. For this rig one way is to lead it under the
boom and make it fast to the mast a few inches higher.
Thus fitted it will keep the sail from falling about when
lowered.
There should be two rings or thimbles
on it, through one of which the tack is led, this
prevents the jackstay from getting over the end of boom.
The two rings are seized together in a figure of 8, one
part surrounding the tack, the other the jackstay. As
good a plan is to have a ring, like the traveller, round
the lower part of the mast, prevented from slipping lower
than an inch below the boom by chocks. To this the
jackstay is fastened, and the tack rove through a thimble
seized to the ring.
Thus rigged, the sail can be taken
right off the mast from aft and replaced with equal ease.
To take the sail off the mast, lower away, let go tack,
and haul aft till you get the halliard block, which
untoggle fro mast and hitch to a cleat for the moment.
Then untoggle the tack and launch the sail forward again.
Take of the topping lifts and toggle them and to the
halliard block to the tack. Haul forward, and make all
taut. Then make up and stow the sail. To set the sail
again the halliards must be captured with the boathook,
or the tack may be made an endless line.
The better and snugger plan is to stow
mast and all. When sail is lowered, let the mast come
down, stop the halliards and gear to mast, then take off
forestay at masthead, roll up sail and mast together, and
stow away. Nevertheless it is well to be able to take it
off the mast, as by this means a smaller sail,
e.g. the mizen,m may be substituted for it while
afloat, or the mast may be left on deck while the sail is
stowed below. In this case a longer mast might be used,
but the mast shown in the design will be sufficient for
ordinary work, and is much more convenient than a longer
one.
We next come to the
balanced lug sail, the
sail carried by all the racing craft of the RCC. For
their large sails it is doubtless better than the working
lug. The illustration shows a cruising sail of 56 square
feet. The racing sails are as much is 100 square feet. It
is fitted with identically the same gear as the racing
sails, the list being as follows: sheet, halliard, tack,
downhaul, jackstay, jackstay tackle, topping lifts, 3
reef lines, parrell bands to yard and to each batten,
spinnaker halliard, ditto sheet, 2 preventer backstays,
bridle and spring for ditto.
The halliard is fitted as in the
last-described sail, as are also the downhaul and topping
lifts. The tack is similar, but with the addition of a
whip purchase to haul the sail flat. The jackstay ends in
a block a foot or so above the boom. Its tackle is formed
by a line fast at fore end of boom, through block on end
of jackstay, through another block on boom, aft along the
boom and fast to a cleat near the aft end. This allows of
raising the fore end of boom, and prevents the jackstay
from coming taut when the mast is lowered. The parrell
bands MM keep the sail to the mast when to leeward of
it.
The sheet block, in this or any rig,
may travel on a wire "jumper" under the boom, which
distributes the strain on the boom, and allows a little
less length of sheet to be used in running, as when the
boom is squared away the block travels inboard. The
sheet, of stout cotton or flax line, should have a ring
near each end. When before the wind, one of these rings
is let go, and runs up to the block, the other being
dropped over a hook on the lee side deck. On a wind the
rings are hooked on both side decks, and the sail
"humoured" by the slack. Another way is to let one end of
the sheet travel on a line stretched across the boat as a
"horse", but the line is apt to be in the way of the
hatch, or of the crew when getting forward. In whatever
manner the sheet is fitted, it should be so secured that
the boom cannot get more than square. The sheet is bound
to get adrift sooner or later, and if the sail goes right
over the boat's bow, the consequences may be
troublesome.
The reefs are somewhat similar to
those described before, but there is no hand-reef-line,
and there is an extra line to reef the piece of sail
forward of the mast.
There are three parts to the reef
lines, and a tackle. The leach-line is fast at A ,
leads up through rings to block B, and along the
batten to C. The luff-line (which may be cut all
in one piece with the leach-line) is fast at F,
leads through rings to block E, along the batten
to C, and through a block. The third line, which
we may call the "bunt-line," is fast at D, led
through rings and a block at C. The three lines
are secured strongly to a free block H, which
rests a few inches forward of C. The tackle is
fast at G, leads aft, up through block H,
down through block at G, then through a block
abaft mast and to hand.
By hauling on the tackle, block
H is pulled up to G, and all three lines are
simultaneously tightened till the batten is upon the
boom. For this gear the reef must taper very slightly, as
it does not adapt itself to a reef deeper at one end than
the other, which the former reef gear does. The ends at
A D F should be hitched to the boom so that they
can be slacked or tautened till the strain on them is
exactly equal. This is a capital reef gear, if well
fitted and carefully kept in order, but everything must
be done to keep down the friction, which has a tendency
to be excessive, and spoil the working of the gear. It is
the invention of of Mr. E.B. Tredwen, RCC, in whose hands
it works like a clock, and has aided him to secure many
well won races. With his usual public-spiritedness he has
made it general property and given a description of it in
the Field of Oct. 11th, 1879; and it speaks well
for the gear that he has made no alteration whatever in
it since that date.
The spinnaker halliard is kept on the
main boom, and runs through a block aloft and one at foot
of mast. Some canoeists use one of the topping lifts
instead. The spinnaker sheet is also kept on the boom,
and leads aft through a block on the fore end of it. The
after guy of the spinnaker is kept on the sail. The
spinnaker boom is formed by adding a joint to the
boat-hook, one end being more or less aft on deck, and
the other extending to the tack of the sail. Preventer
backstays are almost necessary with the long racing masts
(over 16 feet in some 14 feet canoes). They have been
fitted with a bridle which hauls one forward as the other
comes aft, and with an indiarubber spring on this bridle,
which carries them both forward to the mast when let go.
All the RCC boats "bore" by the head in running, and this
tendency is greatly diminished if the head of the mast is
hauled aft an inch or two, instead of allowing it to go
forward.
For a small canoe the backstays could
be omitted, and two reefs fitted instead of three; but
unless cut almost like a working lug, with very little
forward of the mast requires a longer spar. If the mast
is thus rendered too long to stow below, it becomes
imperative that the sail be easily taken off the mast,
afloat. To do this we must abolish the parrell bands,
without which the sail loses half its value.
The mizen used in racing under
this rig by Mr. Tredwen is a battened lug, with an
ingenious arrangement for reefing. The boom is double,
the upper part being fitted with a wheel like a window
blind roller. To this the end of the halliard is
fastened, so that when the sail is hoisted the line is
wound on the roller. By pulling at this part of the line,
the roller is forced to revolve, and the sail wound up on
the upper boom. For convenience in handling, the bight of
the halliard is led forward through blocks, and kept taut
by a large indiarubber spring. This mizen works very well
and has little gear, though what there is of it requires
good workmanship.
For a smaller mizen Mr. Tredwen has
designed a spritsail, having an equal length on mast,
boom, and sprit. Either the whole or half of this sail
can be brailed by lines running through rings on the
leach. It would be very suitable for a "storm"
mizen.
The corners of the sail should be
strengthened by double thicknesses of stuff called
"tablings". Strong brass eyelets should be fitted in
these, and smaller ones along head and foot for the
lacings. In cutting out the sail great care should be
taken not to stretch it. The head may be slightly rounded
to allow for the springing or bending of the yard. Blocks
and cord for rigging can be had at Good's, King William
Street, E.C.
Blocks should have brass sheaves and
brass pins, and should be seen to run fair and freely,
and the cords should fit them easily. These should be of
the very best quality four strand line, except for reef
lines and other strings that are liable to kink. These
should be of plaited line, a larger size which is good
for painter etc. The canes for battens, etc., can be had
at the fishing tackle makers, and should be carefully
chosen, free from splits and worm holes. When cut to
their length the ends should be bound with string or
wire, and plugged with soft wood, afterwards being well
varnished. Seizings of hard twine well varnished are very
durable, but the booms might be bound with wire, as
resisting chafe better, or even very lightly ferruled
with brass, which the fishing-rod makers can
do.
|