Rigging

John Zaber

Curious about Wooden Canoes
I am a bit baffled by the rigging of a lateen sail on our OT Cedar/Canvas canoe. My primary challenge is a smooth (one person) raising of the sail. Anyone in traveling distance of northern Vermont that has a good system I can inspect?
 
I usually lift the top yard to the approximate position on the mast where it belongs while taking the slack out of the halyard with the other hand. This is much easier if the sail is pointing into the wind before you start. I am in the Portland, Maine area if you want a demonstration.

Benson
 
The functions of a gooseneck are pretty simple. The main one is to keep mainsheet and wind pressure from pushing the boom forward. To a certain extent, it can also make raising and lowering the sail easier by keeping the boom close to the mast. You can certainly make an inexpensive, but perfectly functional single jaw gooseneck from a piece of wood. A fairly hefty strip of brass could also be bent to a similar shape and attached to the boom. The Sunfish gooseneck can work, but the prices on those things these days are pretty crazy. The least expensive means is to lash a piece of rope to the side of the boom a few inches ahead of the mast, and its other end a few inches aft of the mast, leaving a short space between them where the mast will be contained by the line. All of these methods can work just fine.

jaw.JPG

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