Raising the sail

[John Zaber]

I am hoping someone has a video of raising and lowering the sail on a wooden canoe sailing rig. My process is somewhat challenging and I am interested in how others go about it. FYI we have a 17 foot Old Town with a lateen sail

Thanks
John

Craftsbury, Vermont
.

 

[Benson Gray]

I usually just raise the yard up to the correct location at the top of the mast with one hand and then hold the tension on the main sheet with the other hand. Then I can use both hands to cleat or tie off the main sheet. I have never made a video of this though. Sorry,

Benson

 

[floydvoid]

Do you have a halyard and a sheave at the top of the mast? Aka a pulley at the top of the mast and a rope to haul up the sail?

The old town lateen is the same as a Sunfish lateen- look up videos for sunfish rigging.

It helps to have some way to tie off the halyard, I just tie mine to a thwart up near the mast. I recently added a small thul pin on my mast seat to tie off the halyard, I can post pictures if you’re interested.

One innovation that people use with sunfish is they put a cleat on the mast, that way the tension of the halyard line is not pressing the mast down into the hull of the boat. You still have to cleat the line off to the hull so the whole sail mast and rig are still attached somehow.

 

[floydvoid]

Where you tie the halyard to the upper sail yard matters too. There are good sunfish videos on this too, I’ve posted it here before. You always should pull the yard all the way tight to the mast. I tie two clove hitches in a row so that I can slide the halyard up or down the yard to tune in my rigging.