Grumman Aluminum 17 ft canoe - olive drab color - indestructible!!! This is a 17 foot aluminum Grumman canoe in olive drab color - our family of 5 could easily fit into it for summer adventures. Local pick up - we are keeping our paddles but will include 2 square floating boat cushions if wanted. Retail price is around $1200.00 plus tax. Email if any questions.
Do you need a sail kit (as in a kit to build the sail) or a sail rig (as in the sail, mast leeboards, rudder and other stuff that makes it all work)? The original Grumman sail rig of the 1970s was a gunter sail with a 2-piece aluminum mast, aluminum rudder assembly a leeboard bracket with two leeboards and rope steering. It looked like this (only at the time, we had it on an Old Town 16' Ojibwa canoe).If I had to guess who in the USA might still have one for sale, I would try the Chicagoland Canoe Base, though their owner just recently died and I don't know what state the business is currently in.The other option is to build your own rig, and there are all kinds that could be put on a Grumman and work as well as, or better than the original.
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Building the sail itself with no knowledge of sailmaking isn't usually very successful as there is actually a fair bit of technology involved in getting the shape right. The rest of the rig though, is pretty basic woodworking and not very expensive. You could combine your woodwork with either a sail built by a real sailmaker or a sail kit from a place like Sailrite (they sell pre-shaped, pre-cut kits with the design work already done and you just sew it together) and end up with a very nice sail rig that works quite well.Helping people put sailing rigs on canoes is what I do for a living, and I literally wrote the book on canoe sailing (nobody else was crazy enough, I guess). I build sails, but all the remaining parts of the sail rigs are built by the customers themselves. Compared to a lot of sailing, canoe sailing tends to be a lot less formal and stuffy, with a lot more owner innovation going on.The book is here. That secures the base of the mast. There is a certain amount of strain on the leeboard bracket and rudder (sideways pressure) but generally nothing to worry about unless the canoe is some sort of ultra-light construction.
The various pieces of the sailing rig get anchored to the gunwale and stem structures, which help greatly to spread the strain over a broad area, the same way they do the loads on the seats or on a portage yoke. You also have to consider that narrow canoe hulls don't have an awful lot of stability, compared to big fat sailboats. Thus they get smaller sails and most would roll over long before anything broke. Click to expand.Sailboats themselves come in two basic categories.those which use 'daggerboards', 'swing-keels' and the like, and those often referred to as 'keelboats' (having a stationary deep keel). On a sailing canoe, 'leeboards' take the place of the daggerboard you might see on a sailing dinghy.Technically, you don't 'need' any such appendage to sail. But you do need it to sail upwind.
Edit: On Ahnkochee's first pic and Todd's second pic, you can clearly see the employment of a leeboard. Todd, I have your book and just started reading it. I love it - well done! I have been going round and round with the folks at BWCA about what kind of sail rig is permissible in the Boundary Waters. I have a 17' Grumman squareback, the original leeboard thwart, the leeboards, rudder and a Gunter sail, and mast that came from Ralph Freese at Chicago Land Canoe base.
The Rangers up in MN tell me that everything except the mast and sail is legal but any mast and boom must be jury rigged from poles in the forest and the sail can only be a tarp or poncho but not a factory sail. The sprit rig in your photo looks like it would work. How do you tie the snooter and connect it to the mast and boom? If you can get the word to the proper market, you're underpriced by about half as far as selling the parts you do have (or offering anybody here who is interested a really good deal). The factory rudder gudgeon might be hard to find, but could probably be made or switched out for a different one.
The leeboards are pretty easy to make.Rudders can even be built onto a side mount bracket for folks that don't want to bolt or rivet through their canoe's stems. This is one designed by one of my customers, built to fit a factory motor mount bracket. It even hinges to kick up if you hit anything.One of the neat things about doing custom work is that you get to work on some really classy stuff, where it's a privilege to be included as part of the project. I got this photo yesterday from a former customer. I designed and built the sail nearly ten years ago. In this case, the boat and wooden parts are old restored originals.In other cases, we start from scratch.
We put out heads together, design the rig, the customer does the wood working and boat building and I build the sail.You can't own them all yourself, but it sure is fun to be a part of many of these builds, and it's also fun to see some of the scratch-built solutions that customers come up with. If anyone is interested in original Grumann parts for their '70's sailing kit for canoes, I have the following:blue/white sail, mast w/rigging;square floor mount for end of mast;mast crosser brace;leeboard crosser brace;rudder assembly; wooden steering piece w/ropeI do not possess the pair of wooden leeboards, nor do I have the small bracket that attaches the rudder assembly to the stern of the canoe.I'm not looking to get rich by selling the Grumman sail parts I do have; I prefer to see them go to good use and continue the tradition of days gone past. You may contact me should you wish to discuss acquiring these parts. They came off of a 17' '74 Grumman, but will fit any year Grumman from that period (the Grummans have pre-drilled holes for these crossers to attach to).Pics available if wanted.
There have been sail rigs built with only one, longer leeboard (Mad River Canoe once sold one) but it seems that most folks find that one on either side tends to work more consistently. As for the gudgeons, I have never taken a Grumman flotation compartment apart, but I suspect that there is a big block of foam in there (and the compartment itself may not be, or need to be sealed).
It might be possible to through-bolt, rivet or screw on the gudgeons to the stem with a little bit of sealer or neoprene gasketing without really compromising the compartment.It is also possible to build some sort of de-mountable rudder system. One of my customers built this kick-up system onto a side-mount motor bracket, which is pretty clever and required no mods to the canoe. This may be a little late, but Todd is correct about this ring, on my version the rope is adjustable but I've not changed it for years.I have an rtf file I made of my Gruman rig instructions from '72, including pictures of the stern and the mast step, PM me for a copy.There are no modifications to the hull at all, the rudder goes on an adapter that mounts on the stern 'tow shackle hole'. Basically a curved (to match the stern) V shape with tabs at the top and bottom for the rudder to pivot on.The only bad part of the rig was that I quickly found that the padding Grumman supplied for the rudder adapter was short-lived and loose, so I wrapped the stern and the pin with saran wrap, applied a generous helping of RTV to the rudder adapter and mounted it, squeezing out the excess. After it cured, I trimmed it. Now years (!?!) later the RTV is still good and the adapter comes on or off easily, no rattles at all, it looks good and I use the adapter for a painter rope attachment.The only other thing that I did different from Grumman was I replaced the steering pulleys with yachting stainless ones and hooked them on the free end of the bolts that attach the Grumman yoke. A bit of clarification on that ring/downhaul: Todd is essentially correct that the luff needs to be tensioned, but that is common on most main booms, not just the gunter.
Gunter sails have a section of the luff called a throat, which is that part that spans the distance between the boom jaw and the gunter yard jaw. Jaws being the forks that go around the mast. On a Grumman gunter sail, it is about 2.5 feet long. As you raise a gunter sail, to its full position, the downhaul is then pulled down and made fast to a cleat or whatever. Mine uses a cam cleat. Tensioning the luff is part of tuning your sail for optimal effect.While Grumman sails are pretty rudimenary, they can be modified for some very good performance, as I have, adding a reefing system and altering the foot for better light wind conditions.