September 2002, North Benjamin Island campsite.
July
2004, Walela,
Round Island Lighthouse,
three-masted schooner eastbound into the Ship
Channel.
Sailing Canoe Cruising Life by Hugh Horton
|
September 2002, North Benjamin Island campsite. |
July
2004, Walela,
Round Island Lighthouse, |
In
The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,
Gordon Lightfoot sings of wilderness, “when the waves turn the minutes to
hours.” The Fitz was not a sailing
canoe---but it’s the same wet wilderness for us all, across time and cultures.
We
might think of Hannes Lindemann in his Klepper double, or Conrad’s Captain Tom
Lingard in his ‘brig’ Lightning,
Robert Manry’s Tinkerbelle, or maybe
“Barnacle” Kendall in Solid Comfort.
Or of Arabs, Asians, Africans, and Americans; or of Vikings, Mediterraneans,
Polynesians, Micronesians, Indonesians, and others in their boats, too. Your ancestors, perhaps---or you, and your
descendants.
But
for us---Howard Rice, Meade Gougeon and myself, and our other friends, cohorts and
colleagues---the cruising, sailing canoe makes sense as the boat in which to
visit the wilderness. Nothing else gives such good sailing and paddling. Nothing
gives as splendid fun to aggravation ratio, nor as miniscule a maintenance to
on-the-water ratio. Nor such comfort and utility.
Although individually we have experience sailing, paddling, and building small craft, we’re trying to learn from each other and develop the best sailing canoe we can.
While
a canoe built as lightly as a Rutan plane would be desirable, autoclaved and
pre-pregged, with a honey-comb cored hull and deck of, say, 30-34 lbs, our
Serendipity Sisters’ wet bagged, foam cored deck and proprietary bagged hull
unit of 39-40 lbs is okay. It’s noticeably lighter than Puffin, Serendipity and Sylph with wooden cored decks at 41-44 lbs.
45-50
lbs is likely reasonable for a careful homebuilder with our multichine boat,
depending on skill and choices of plywood, fabrics, and resin. Built crudely and
cheaply, perhaps 60 lbs---but still cartoppable. Sailing gear, paddles, seat,
and airbags add another 25 lbs.
Comfort is a design factor close to sailing and paddling performance. The goal is to be refreshed after 18 hours in our boats. We want to step lightly ashore, ready for frisbee, dining or samba, but glance back fondly, thinking favorably of continuing.
~Hugh Horton, hortonsailcanoe@wowway.com
 June 2000, Puffin on Boca Grande Key, west of Key West. |
 June 2000, Broad reaching toward the Snipe Keys. |
 July 2002, Beaver Islands, Lake Michigan. Howard Rice in Serendipity. |
 September 2002, Frenchette Island, North Channel, Lake Huron, Ontario Canada. Meade Gougeon pushing off in Serendipity; Jan Gougeon ahead in Spirit. |
 September 2002, Meade and I running relaxed back to Spanish. |
 May 2004, Cedar Key Florida. Jan in Puffin on the left, Meade in Serendipity, crossing tacks over oysters in Atsena Otie Key. |
 May 2004, Walela on all oyster Corrigan Reef; white pelicans in the right background. |
 July 2004, Straits of Mackinac, Michigan. Freighter west bound at dusk out of the Mackinac Ship Channel with Walela and my tent. |
 November 2004, Shiawassee National Wildlife Refuge, Michigan. Meade in his Serendipity Sister (Jane Dipity?). |
Copyright 2005 Hugh Horton. ( hortonsailcanoe@wowway.com )