Sailing a duck boat

D

Dave Sharpe

New member
Over the years there have been discussions and examples of converting sailboats i.e. sunfish, or lazers into duck boats. Has anyone done the opposite - rigged up a duck boat to sail. Seems the original BBSBs were set up to sail. I'm wondering if my Four Rivers Two Man Layout ----
 
Dave,I don't know about your boat,but the only one I know that is building BBSB sailing options,
is David Clark,<www.canvasback.org>.I wanted one and wound up with two boats.The sailor is a Melonseed,an 1880 duck boat designed to improve the sailing qualities of the BBSB,which it does.Dave has a couple pics on a classified tread.Page 6 toward the bottom "Estuary BBSB".There are builders in the North costal NJ area that build sailing versions,but they work by word of mouth,I'm told.I'm going to Tuckerton,the end of the month.I'll try to find out who/what/where.
 
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I'm not sure what Joe said, I don't read the all the slanted words real well. But I don't see why you couldn't convert one to sailing.

What is the hull shape? Is it a displacement hull? If it is more of a planing hull, there will be drag and slow it down. Unless you had enough wind and canvas to get it up on plane, but that would be very foolish and probably a short trip ending up getting wet and over turned. I would be rather conservative on the spar and canvas size so not to swamp the boat.

You could get a book on constructing sail boats and go from there. You would probably need a fabricate a dagger board, drop rudder, mast partner and mast step and spar.

While I can name some of the things you would need, that is about all I know. You can make a sailing canoe, so why not a sailing Four Rivers?
 
Joe, I went to the website you listed. It was about a medical mission sailboat serving the Micronesian Islands. Are you sure that's the correct URL?

Thanks

Dave
 
Sorry Dave.The url is <www.canvasbacks.org>Dave Clark has pics in the classified page 6 "estuary BBSB".Also Bill Perry has built and posted pics on the site as well as
another member On the post,"This is a duck boat site,let's see em"
This is Bill on his maiden sail

DSCN0775.jpg
This is a Melonseed like mine,sailing during the summer soltice in Barnstable harbor,Cape Cod.

42aa.jpg
 
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Dave: yes I did build the BBSB. Need info will be glad to share, How about listing your location on site registration. Thanks,Bill
 
Ok, Got my locations in.

I already have a Four Rivers Two Man Layout Boat (Its more like a BBSB than a Great Lakes Layout). I'm trying to get all the uses I can out of it. It works great with an electric or 3hp, and poles well. I even tried covering it's two keels with the material used on ice boat runners. Thought I could get that baby moving with a push pole and fly across the ice to open water. Ha! There was crusty snow on the ice the day I tried it. Wound up dragging it a mile across ice to the river mouth and back - no ducks - a learning experience. Tried it as a one-man drift boat on the Madison and Yellowstone fly fishing with an automatic reel this summer. That worked. Though the bottom is now rock scarred.

But since selling my little sailing catamaran I've had a hankering for another small sail boat.

So what I'm interested is finding out how to rig her to sail, and where to find the parts - mast step, spirit rig (is that the best?) sail, leeboards (do you use those?) and clamp-on rudder.

Any advice appreciated.

Thanks Dave
 
Greetings gentlemen. I happened to stumble upon your forum while looking for other stuff and noticed this thread. I don't know much about ducks, but I am a sailmaker and about a year ago I built a sail for Jim Marsh in Michigan to fit a duckboat that he was restoring. We did a fairly extensive search to see what was historically accurate and didn't find much, but did at least find some old photos of duckboats equipped with spritsails, a few gaff sails and a few lugsails. Nearly all of them had a low profile and a rather drawn-out aft corner, something not found on other types of traditional small boat sails. We weren't sure of the reason for this, but it was distinctive enough that we decided to build one based on that style and cut like a traditional old cotton sail would have been. The fabric is a modern Dacron sailcloth, but it's made in a cream color for use on antique boats where a traditional Egyptian cotton look is desired. My gut feeling is that the long corner may have been a means of getting as much sail area as possible with fairly short, stowable spars while also keeping the sail area low for stability. The rigs that we found were all very simple and anybody who can build or restore a boat should have no trouble building one. Aside from the differences in some of the sail profiles, the rest of these rigs (both the parts themselves and their assembly) are very similar to what you would build when converting a canoe for sailing.

The typical profiles usually looked similar to the sail shown in this old photo. This one is a lugsail, but you can see the long aft (clew) corner that was common to most of the lugs, sprits and gaff sails we found.

http://webpages.charter.net/tbradshaw/Sail%20photos/old%20duckboat.JPG

Even though we weren't completely sure why it was shaped this way, we decided it was too cool looking to miss the opportunity to make one. We went with a spritsail configuration because it's easy to rig and use and Jim had never sailed a boat before. We also kept it's size fairly conservative for the same reason. Here is the finished sail, ready to be shipped out.

http://webpages.charter.net/tbradshaw/Sail%20photos/duckboat%20spritsail.jpg

http://webpages.charter.net/tbradshaw/Sail%20photos/duckboat%20sail%20008%20copy.jpg

...and if it will help anybody, this is the building plan for the sail and it's spars in PDF form, along with the notes I sent to Jim when I shipped the sail. The other parts of the sailing rig which Jim built (leeboards, rudder, mast step, etc.) were basically the same as sailing canoe equipment, adapted as needed for the duckboat. I don't know what percentage of sailing duckboats had sails with this type of profile and I suspect that the intent was more simple propulsion than performance sailing, but it was fun to build something out of the ordinary. Hope this helps.

Todd Bradshaw
Madison, Wisconsin

http://webpages.charter.net/tbradshaw/Sail%20photos/!DUCK.PDF
 
Good info Todd.Many older duck boats didn't have a centerboard/dagarboard and used a small sail for downwind work and steered with oar or paddle.
With a centerboard the sail could be increased and later ,also have a sprit boom,loose footed.with the foot of the sail from tack to clew raising at some angle rather than dropping.
If one wanted the spars to store in the boat,consideration on the size of the cockpit opening and distance from the aft end of the cockpit and inside peak at the bow,to determine the length of the spars.9' is probably right for all spars on a 12' BBSB.My Melonseed has 10' spars on a 13'9" boat.
 
Todd,

Excellent post full of great information. Thank you for stopping by. Careful though you may get hooked, you already like one of the major three reasons to to get involved. Small unique boats, dogs and decoys.

Thanks!

Scott
 
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