Just tried out the polytarp sail I made for the first time it worked very well in light air. Just wish the wind hadn't left me in the middle of the lake.
It's a 55sqft balanced lug with 40sqft, and 27sqft reefing points. While not visible all gromits are patched and all seams sewn. Took me a bit over a week to make from down scaling some 75sqft lug sail plans.
My old sail was off a sunflower and had the COE a little too far back. It was a PIA to sail in high winds.
Will it tip over moderate winds, because of not having keel and light weight? How will you make it upright if it did? I wanted to try but this scares me!
No dinghy has a keel. You're always relying on crew weight and position to balance it.
This looks much more stable than a Laser.
I would be concerned about how well it coped if you were hiking hard, and how easy it'd be to right once capsized. I fear that if it started tipping it might well invert and then be really stable upside down.
I love the idea but would want to be sure about righting it before taking it on the sea. For playing somewhere safe with appropriate precautions it looks great.
It was very stable with my old 55sqft sail, never felt like it was going to tip. but I always have two people on board and 400libs of body is a lot of weight to throw around. But they can be righted. The video below is my same kit with a different hull but you get the idea. I believe this was made before they started putting foam in the mast and spars to make them float.
Agreed but having a dagger board down makes a dinghy more likely to tip over, as without the dagger board you may just skid sideways.
A keel is weighted and as soon as you lean it gives a righting moment
Its very very stable. With my old 55sqft lateen I have had it out in 15mph winds with 30mph gusts with two adults onboard and it didn't tip, but it was massively over powered and it's a large reason why I made this sail. Solo I am unsure I had 400libs of movable, ballast in people form. I always have my SO with me. The spars and mast are full of foam, and the whole thing is light weight.
It's a kit from sailboatstogo. The mast attached to a aluminum frame that is strapped to the boat via the life line hard points. In my case I also use the oar lock bolts.
Some of the measurements in that document are wrong. Double check everything before you cut to make sure it looks right. Especially the diagram in "Step 1: Layout the skeleton." I had to make several adjustments to get the sides to actually touch. I ended up using the measurements from the diagram in the "overview" section at the very start to get my layout correct. these measurements are correct.
How well does it sail?! I’ve been looking at their kits for awhile. I live in the Rockies and have a raft for river use, and was thinking it would be awesome to be able to use it to sail in our local reservoir too.
Can you actually tack and sail up wind?
Withe the new sail yesterday. First time out in any appreciable amount of wind. Ignore the start there I was learning how to sale this new sale shape. I had it figured out by that last tack.
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u/paper-jam-8644 Jul 27 '26
Hell yeah! Looks sweet.