: It's been done on my myriad Dyson baidarkas, plus on my own
: Chuckanut 15 kayaks, and also on generations of Kleppers and
: Folbots. There are two different varieties of kayak sailing,
: basically - downwind only, and "real" sailing.
: Downwind only (beam reach and below) rigs are common, and easy -
: all you need is some variety of sail (and there are many!), and
: a paddle to steer with. The stresses on the rig are minimal, and
: the rewards are often great.
: "Real" sailing - i.e. rigs that can go upwind, too - are
: a whole different animal. You'll need some sort of leeboard,
: daggerboard or centerboard, plus a rudder - plus some beefing up
: in the frame area where the mast thwarts will be.
: But, when you rig a kayak to sail upwind, you could often paddle
: upwind just as fast! Sitting down in a narrow kayak severely
: limits your ability to use your weight to counteract the force
: of the wind on the sail - meaning that you will get overpowered
: early and often. The wider your kayak, the better (in that
: respect), and that's why CLC has a sail rig available for their
: kayaks that features outriggers that you attach to the main
: hull.

: Check out Todd Bradshaw's superb book "Canoe Rig: The Essence
: and the Art" for tons of info and great illustrations.

I suspect that a non-outrigger (ama) kayak can make decent speed upwind, though the sail will have to be tiny. I used to sail a non-outrigger canoe and never hiked out on it and it did fine upwind, you do have to use serious care to judge what windspeeds you try to sail in though, much over about 15 mph and you'll be swimming alot.

I'd bet that a lashed together SOF will require some extra material to resist the twisting moments, the leeboard/bilgeboard/daggerboard etc. has to be considerably aft of the mast to balance the sail on most rigs so it'll try to twist the boat considerably, have to have some method to resist this moment to say nothing of the moments caused by the rudder.

Still, no reason it can't be done, I've thought about it several times and actually have a rig to use on one if I ever get around to building it. But my SOF's have epoxied joints so they more naturally resist those moments.

Bill H.