Paddle Sailing Trip Reports

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Tuesday, September 6, 2011 1:24 PM

Weekend trip report using small boat this time

FROM: Scott Laman
TO: Falcon Sails

Hi Falcon Sails

I wanted to share my weekend adventures and how your sail works on a smaller kayak.

I’ve enjoyed your sail rig on my 16.5′ perception, and that’s my main boat. But our local forecast called for scattered thunder storms all day which made lugging my longer kayak around less desirable. Since it wasn’t raining (yet) and I felt a breeze in the morning, I got inspired to try your 1.3 meter sail rig on my wife’s little yellow boat.

It’s a low-end plastic recreational kayak, and is very short (10′ tip to tip, and wide/stable). The hull bottom is a funky “W” shape. “Roto-molded multi-channel hull for stability and tracking” according to manufacturer. I didn’t take any pictures under sail, but it’s one of these…

Anyway, I wasn’t sure how it would all work, but I thought it might be fun to see how your sail rig works on such a little boat. (I’ll follow up with a report on my experiments with my Stearns Cordova B524 9′ “Inflatable” at some point too!)

I took about half an hour to drill holes for the mast and rigging mount points (interesting to rig on such a shortie – will mention ideas later*), then got it out on Moore Reservoir between NH and VT http://library.byways.org/assets/60941 which is near where we camp during the summer.

As I put in, the skies were growing dark & stormy, and the winds were steady and what I’d call strong. Maybe 10-12knots (11-13mph), maybe a little more, just starting to see a few white caps on the water. I got a good couple hours of pure “sailing” as the winds increased and started gusting. As the storm rolled in closer, there were some serious gusts. (about 20knots (23mph) – according to the weather report) At one point I pulled up to shore to tighten up all the rigging and water was being wind blown up over the dock I was standing on. So as the day progressed, there were times when it was getting a little chancy, but exciting. On one tack in particular, I was hit cross to the wind and the mast was visibly bending, and turning into the wind would push me backward. Thoughts of something breaking crossed my mind, but everything held up amazingly. Definitely “intense” for a while. Of course, I was grinning like a fool. I was having an ABSOLUTE BLAST out there.

As the wind got crazier weather wise with thunder booming up over the mountains, I really knew I’d have to head in soon, and found myself staying within site of the launch. Going out to the middle and circling back, reaching, running, tacking just “one more time”. Really just trying all points of sail and seeing what your rig would do.

Everything worked perfectly, I was totally surprised at how well the tiny boat handled under your sail. Heading up wind showed surprisingly little side slip (must be the crazy hull shape), and I could pretty easily make forward progress up wind as well as down. There was a slight tendency to weather helm (into the wind) … and all I had to do was give a strong stroke to face a bit down wind to counter the turn (which combined with the wind, just made the boat go faster). At times I paddled corrective strokes, at times just used the paddle as a rudder. Though I didn’t really need to.

The sail was excellent on this shorter boat, as much fun as on my faster narrower kayak. I’ve tried it on 3 different kayaks now. Goes to show you that a sail can be a fun addition to nearly any kayak. Long or short, wide or narrow – it’s all fun! Can’t wait to introduce my wife and sons to a little bit of paddle/sailing next time the wind is up

I saw a few people on shore pull up in their cars and watch my antics. The “nut job” sailing around in a tiny kayak out before a thunderstorm. But I was simply having TOO MUCH FUN. I talked to a few folks on shore and showed them how easy your sail was to use and take down & bring up.

I was really reluctant to call it quits when rain and lightning caused better judgment to take over. So common sense prevailed and I decided to call it a day. Just in time, because as soon as I got to shore it got a bit crazy with the thunder/lightning/rain. But it was really an enjoyable time.

I packed up and headed back to the campground. The skies cleared again later. So I drove to another spot up river. More sheltered and most of the storms over, it was glassy calm then – most of the days intense fun was obviously over. Winds were just not any good up at this smaller section of the river. But it gave me a chance to mess around in very slight breezes. Definitely not as fun as having a steady wind to rely on. But it’s easy to un-rig it all and just paddle the rest of the day.

Nice to have options ;-D

Thanks again