Laced the mizzen luff to the custom mast with 1/8th inch nylon line from New England Ropes, used a marlin hitch. The mizzen is loose footed, boom will be secured to the stern and act as a boomkin, sheet will run from clew, through a block on the boomkin and forward to a fairlead jam cleat on the mizzen thwart.
Mizzen can be rolled up to furl, or if the boomkin is released the whole rig can be wrapped up like a burrito and stowed in the bilge.
We made a 12 square foot mizzen for our Grumman 17 SCOUT, to help balance the gaff main. Cut it out of some fine painter's drop cloth, 6 foot luff, 4 feet on the foot with a 6 degree rise, which matches the rise on the gaff.
Marked the seam allowance.
Cut some corner reinforcement patches.
Too much air conditioning inside, let's move outside where heat index is 95F! Time to make the stern thwart, Spoiler Alert, here is what it looks like uninstalled once we were done, we just decided how to cut the next piece and what size to make it as we went along.
Cut one pine thwart to sit on top of the gunwale and one to notch just inside of it. Drilled 4 holes for 1/4 inch carriage bolts with washered wing nuts. Marked a 1 1/2 inch hole amidships, 3/4 inch forward of the aft face. Drilled a 1/2 inch pilot hole for the jigsaw blade and cut out the hole.
Cut two 12 inch side pieces and beveled the top edge so they would drop vertical and barely touch the sides. Then cut the angled bottom thwart, screwed together with deck screws. Once that thwart was assembled we installed it and dropped in the 1 1/2 inch mast (8 foot closet rod from Lowes), which tilted forward because of the angle of the thwart on the aft rise of the canoe. Used a diamond tile file to ease out the lower forward edge and aft upper edge of the mast hole, until the hole was oblong enough for the mast to be set plumb vertical. Then we leveled the canoe port to starboard, dropped in the mast and, set it plumb and vertical, and marked the bottom thwart for a hole on the top face. Took the thwart out and brought it in the carriage house to transfer that top marking to the bottom face. I could have disassembled it but I didn't want things to get misaligned during reassembly. This is a picture of the stern thwart upside down, we found the port-starboard center of the bottom thwart and transferred fore and aft measurement of aft face of mast. The positioned mast on those marks to draw a circle.
There is not much open room behind the stern seat and the stern deck, about 6 inches, so early on I sat on the seat with the thwart installed to see if the mast would be in the way. The mast was okay but the forward edge of the thwart was too close to the seat. So I took a pencil and traced a cutout for butt clearance.
Reinstalled everything to check visual sight lines, vertical and plumb with the gaff main.
SCOUT got to bunk over with ZIP, WINNIE, WAVE and MARGARET ROSE.
We got the gaff sail finished, it came out to around 41 square feet. Then Skipper took it out for a test float to check balance, figure out control lines and get a general look at how the rig sets.
But first we had to make a sail, mast step, boom and gaff.
We had scaled a sail from John Leathers book Gaff Rig to work on this mast and on this canoe's gunwale height, with 16 inches of step at the bottom and 30 inches of topmast to set a peak halyard. Leather's suggested ratios for a sail were Luff 1.0, Head 0.833, Leech 1.73 and Foot 1.02, with a 30 degree rise at the head of the sail and 6 degrees at the tack.
Throwing out a lot of terms here, here is a diagram of gaff sail nomenclature for David Nichol's book The Working Guide to Traditional Small-Boat Sails.
Laid out our sail dimensions. 6 foot luff, 5 foot head, 10' 6" foot leech and 6' 4" foot.
Oriented the cloth so that the cloth panel seams, the panels are about 30 inches wide, were oriented along the leech, to give the sail a vertical panel cut. Added a 1 1/4 inch seam allowance along the foot, luff and head with blue tape. Cut out a sail from a painter's drop cloth, then did a double tuck on the seam to give the sail a 3/4 inch seam all the way around. The fabric unravels easily so go slow. The medium duty Genome did okay on the first batch of stitching, and the Sailrite LSZ-1 had no problems working the fabric. We also cut double reinforcing panels for the corners.
We put in Grommets, #4 for the head, tack and clew and #1 for the luff and head. Check out our post on Spur Grommet Installation.
The canoe had gunwale holes for the thwart and fittings in the bilge for a mast step and sheet block for a 45 sf gunter rig. We are using those fittings as locations for our gaff rig. Worked on the thwart first, enlarged the factory gunwale holes to 1/4 inch, because we bought 1/4 inch carriage bolts. Smaller carriage bolts would work too and skip the drill.
we had an old mast similar in size to a Sunfish mast, 2 1/4 inch diameter and just over 10 feet long. After we cut the thwart 5 inches long and fit it to the gunwales we cut a 2 1/2 inch hole for the mast.
We used the pergola to hold up the mast while we fit the step.
We cut a rectangle in the bottom board to fit around the factory step in the bilge, and mad a round step to fit inside the mast. We tried this basic setup first but the amst could move the step side to side.
Rounded the edges of the thwart to prevent bumps.
Ergonomic testing.
Roll tacking!
Sheet block attached to factory fitting in the bilge.
We added the V braces to prevent lateral movement of the step.
We cut out some 1x pine jaws for the boom and the gaff, cut a slot to fit the closet rod and screwed them into place. We drilled pilot holes to prevent splits and then set silicone bronze wood screws to hold the boom and gaff. We also put screws in cross grain to prevent splits down by the jaws. Drilled 1/4 inch holes to attach the tack and the downhaul, used a Sunfish sheet snap and 1/8th inch line. Also drilled holes for parrel beads.
We attached some field expedient halyards, put on outhauls through 1/4 inch bee holes and trimmed the boom and gaff to length. Left a little extra for sail stretch.
Skipper paddled, did some roll tacks and gybed. Had a blast in the Grumman Cat Canoe
We made a copy of the roundel and cut out the white sections with an xacto knife, then used that to trace the circles and triangles over the base circle with pencil.
We wanted medium blue for the roundel, decided to try a 1:1 mix of paints we had in the Carriage House. Looked around and we had Kirby White enamel and Interlux Brightside Sapphire Blue Polyurethane. Would they mix? No idea, but we went for it anyway. The color came out great and the paint flowed on nice and smooth, good coverage. Time will tell how the mix holds up, maybe we discovered something new. We used a nice mixing cup from Jamestown DIstributors, it has markings for different mix ratios, we used 1:1.
For 1:1 our the first color up to the 1 on the left, then the second color up to the one on the right. The other markings to the right are for different ratios like 2:1, 3:1 etc...Pour slow and stop short of the line, let the paint fill in as it is easy to pour past the line. I poured too much White for the 1 mark so I slowed down, regrouped and poured a little more up to the 2 line. Then poured the Blue up to the 2 line. We had plenty of Medium Blue!
I turned the canoe on its side to paint the blue, that helps avoid runs. The key before painting is to mark which parts will be blue, it is easy to get it backwards. I marked one of the blue sections with a B as I was tracing. For a brush I used a cheapo soft brush from a multi pack of art brushes, about 1/2 inch wide with a straight tip. The soft tip let me load up lots of paint, for smooth flow.
The Chinese National roundel dates from 1895, a blue sky with a white sun. The 12 stars represent the 12 months of the year and 12 traditional Chinese hours, symbolizing the spirit of progress.
Number 48 is Triple Ace Tex Hill's ship number from the American Volunteer Group Flying Tigers.
SCOUT ready to head to the beach!
Ready for Sea Trials.
Check out the groove down the beach, the standard flat water keel on the Grumman 17 is designed to make paddling easier and help the canoe track straight, reducing unwanted drift.
SCOUT had a great time, chased some pelicans, successful Float Test and she was pretty proud of herself!
SCOUT is happy to back with her kayak buddies, holding up the trees. New adventures await!
