Canoe Sailing Lake Springfield

The added outrigger certainly adds stability.

Saturday, I finally had a chance to head down to Lake Springfield for a few hours to test out the skin-on-frame canoe's outrigger that I recently fashioned from a 2x4, some off-cut bits of wood and a couple of old spars I shortened and reshaped into iakos/crossbeams. It added a lot of stability to the canoe. At just shy of 12 feet long and maybe 32-33 inches wide, it's never going to be a speedy sailing craft, but with 45 square feet of sail up, it was a little too white knuckled without the reaction time an outrigger gives you. I can even paddle on my knees, which is how I dumped the boat last summer, within the first five minutes of hitting the lake.

One thing I really like about the new setup, I can now easily drop the sail, spread it over the iakos and paddle in dead stretches of wind and under bridges or trees. I'd never tried to sail a thin river channel lake like this and it was more fun than I was anticipating. It took an otherwise plain stretch of water and made it into something more adventurously navigated.

Sailing canoe mods work. Added an outrigger.

Sailing canoe mods work. Added an outrigger.

Sailing canoe mods work. Added an outrigger.

Sailing canoe mods work. Added an outrigger.

Sailing canoe mods work. Added an outrigger.

Comments

Popular Posts