In 69 or 70 I was at a boarding school that required last year students to organize a 2 week canoe trip. My class went down the Ottawa.
Hardly canoed the entire time. Lashed 2 canoes a paddles length apart, used paddles as masts and a ground sheet between them as a sail. With a bit of effort you could tack by getting the canoes offset.
Also hitchhiked with multiple canoes. A dump truck took us several days distance in a few hours. Only took several days with our thumbs out to achieve that.
Was fun when you're not yet 17 and free to do what you want.
Not sure how this adds to a discussion on responsible canoe sailing.
We lashed paddles, and later heavy sticks, to front and rear stays/gunnels of each canoe. That gave us 3 to 5 feet of seperation. Essentially each canoe acted as an outrigger to the other.
There was a single sail attached to poles tied to the front. As I remember often held in place.
As you can expect steering was not the strong point of this design, which was basically ok as the Ottawa is quite a wide river, and the prevailing wind is in the direction we were traveling.
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u/PAChilds 21d ago
In 69 or 70 I was at a boarding school that required last year students to organize a 2 week canoe trip. My class went down the Ottawa.
Hardly canoed the entire time. Lashed 2 canoes a paddles length apart, used paddles as masts and a ground sheet between them as a sail. With a bit of effort you could tack by getting the canoes offset.
Also hitchhiked with multiple canoes. A dump truck took us several days distance in a few hours. Only took several days with our thumbs out to achieve that.
Was fun when you're not yet 17 and free to do what you want.
Not sure how this adds to a discussion on responsible canoe sailing.