BETH Sailing Canoe plan – Fast, Easy build classic Lug.

The BETH Sailing Canoe was designed to be beautiful, fast and exciting for performance sailing, fast and easy to build from plywood and light enough to handle by myself – and look like a classic sailing boat design.

BETH was also a test bed to see if all the lug rig would perform if equipped with modern low stretch ropes (this was 1990 – so Kevlar and prestretch). A light sailing canoe was the perfect hull for testing the premise.

Not a small list!

It was a huge success. The BETH sailing canoe has picked up its share of mixed fleet trophies, has travelled extensively up the East Coast of Australia on my car roof on camping trips (70lbs).

Viola 14 Sailing Canoe

The Viola Sailing Canoe has dinghy stability and handling with canoe transport and storage.

• Hull 75lbs (34kg)
• Squaretop or reefable Lug rig (distance events)

Performance requires understanding.

Anyone who is comfortable in a Laser in medim to strong winds will find BETH much less effort to keep moving. She is so much more easily driven than a Laser and wave impact doesn’t slow her much. So you can chill out in a medium hike rather than busting your gut to keep the Laser moving upwind.

BETH Sailing Canoe Specifications

• Simple to Build
• Modern Dinghy Performance – Sails rings around most “character boats”
• Only recommended for experienced dinghy sailors
• Light enough to handle on land by yourself
• Comprehensive Plan Pack with step by step instructions.

You will never get tired of people asking or telling you how beautiful BETH looks. They walk over when rigging or call out from other boats. Sometimes they call out when picking up your trophy. True story.

Other Types of Sailng Canoe

Beth was the first, but they have become a bit of a speciality for us.

Our different sailing canoes have different mixes of sailing and paddling ability. Some use existing canoes and add the sailing function.

For an overview see our page about practical choices about performance, handling and advantages and disadvantages of different sailing canoe concepts.

Link – Four Sailing Canoes in Plywood and One Outrigger Canoe

Elegant Plywood Sailing Canoe Plan

BETH is simply the most elegant small squareboat we know.

She was given the “kamikaze” label by those who watched her soar out over Lake Alexandrina in a big wind, with a white rooster tail matching the white knuckles of the white-faced

Michael Storer on his first major proving run.

What that run proved was that all the cynics were wrong! Beth and Mike appeared at the other side of the Lake unscathed and untroubled, and early.

Tim Fatchen of “Square Boats”

Origins and Inspirations:

I drew Beth with a real intention to build her for myself – my first “real design” after years of drawing boats on every spare piece of paper that came my way. There were lots of different ideas that I wanted to try out in a light, cartoppable sailboat:

• the boat to be crewed mostly by one, but with enough carrying capacity for camping gear or a light person for company on daytrips
• performance equivalent to a modern sailing dinghy
• narrow beam means portability. It’s not necessarily weight that makes a boat hard to handle on land on one’s own, but bulk – this pointed to a sailing canoe form
• Also, I was curious just how far the beam could be cut down without resulting in constant capsizing. Moths were just hitting the 12 inch mark.

Around the time I was framing these ideas, I discovered some pictures of American racing sailing canoes from around 1870 – the perfect model for a classic sailing boat.

Long, narrow and light – decked sailing canoes – these were the fastest machines of their era. With their lug yawl sailplans and handsome sheerlines, they had the look I was after.

Many epic voyages were made across the breadth and down the length of North America in these and similar craft. Captain Frederic Fenger sailed his Yakaboo through the West Indies from Granada, up through the Windward and Leeward Islands to Saba. Many of the passages between islands were 40-50 miles.

Above – definitely a classic sailing boat: Building and Launching of one of the first Beth Mk 2 – The very beautiful “Kanangra”

Several Canoes? Then you need a triple storage rack to build yourself

Although I was unlikely to go to these extremes, I still wanted a decked sailing canoe capable of camp cruising, rather than just being good for racing.

Detail Design of BETH, my first sailboat design

When it came to the detail design, there were more ideas I wanted to try out.

Small Rudder Obsession

I wanted to see just how small it was possible to make a rudder and still have control! American E scows tended to tiny rudders, and Fenger’s Yakaboo had no rudder at all. In the event, I went a little too small. Plans have a slightly enlarged rudder with a revised foil shape from the original.

Box Shaped Hull Crossection

American designer Phil Bolger’s “Box Boats” with their flat bottoms and hull sides set at 90 degrees. A hull shape of this sort would certainly cut down my labour – but would the boat sail well and look good? There was one way to find out!

Lug rigs and performance sailing?

We are famous for our lug rig information on this website. BETH was the start.

Old-fashioned sails with modern technology – my background is/was modern high-performance dinghies. Retro rigs – gaff lug and sprit – are pleasant to the eye, but in my experience, they sailed like dogs. Yawl Rig also had a doggy reputation.; “One mast is fast” had been drummed in. But what would be the result if a traditional rig was set up using modern sail controls and then fitted to a hull with high-speed potential?

Putting all the ideas for my cool sailboat together …

So Beth was designed as a lug yawl sailing canoe with a simplified hull shape, a narrow (34″) beam, and a length designed to match available plywood sizes.

In working out the sail area, the antique racing sailing canoe information I found, suggested sail areas of around 67 sq ft.

I thought my box hull would have better stability than the older round bilge types and that sails of Dacron would stretch a lot less in strong winds than cotton. And that maybe we had learned something about performance sailing in the last 120 years (!). So I took a blind stab and went for 85 sq ft. I did draw the sails with a couple of sets of reef points…

Building the BETH Sailing Canoe:

The building process started with a bang, and I spent a long night making up the side and bottom panels and bulkheads. Two days later, David Wilson and I assembled the hull shell in around half an hour! Advantages of the simplified hullshape. David was as startled as I at how fast it had all happened – a sailing canoe appeared before us.

But he dampened my enthusiasm a bit when he christened it “The Hatbox”.

Building then slowed to a more normal pace as conventional decks were fitted. And slowed as six timber spars were tapered and rounded.

Ultimately, it would have taken about 70% of the time needed to build most performance dinghies. Cost in 1989 was around $A1600, including sails; about $A2500 now (about $US1600).

Sailing BETH, a Mistake or OK?

Launching day came around, and we put her in at the municipal pond at Mount Barker in the middle of a Small Boats Day.

The wind was very light, so there was little chance to get a feel for her capabilities.

Before realising that sail trim was crucial for turning I sailed straight over and hit the other side of the pond!

Although her high initial stability was easily demonstrated!

Getting her onto the Lower Murray River at Goolwa and Clayton showed me that her centreboard was just too small. I added another 9″ (175mm), and she came to life. Suddenly able to sail equally with much bigger boats and turn in tacks and gybes calmly and with great reliability. Instead of trimming sails to initiate turns, they became part of the rhythm of the manoeuvre.

Travel with the BETH Sailing Canoe on the car roof

Over the next several years, I sailed Beth extensively in New South Wales, South Australia and Victoria. She has accompanied me on most of my holidays, primarily used for daysailing with occasional fun racing. Beth is the first thing unloaded at the holiday destination and last packed when leaving. She always draws much interest from other sailors, particularly when they realise her speed is well beyond that of other “antique” or classic sailing boat types. Up with Lasers in strong winds for a good sense of performance sailing. A real plus of decked canoes.

An old, grainy photo from my tent beside Lake Macquarie. Beth lying down for lunchtime so the sails don’t flog.

But the biggest advantage to me is that I can easily handle her on shore – I do not have to continually ask other people for a hand to move her about.

Performance of the BETH sailng canoe in Club Racing:

Beth is fast, performing at a similar level to a club-racing Laser dinghy.

This has been borne out by Andrew Barclay racing his BETH in regular club racing in British Columbia. Report here.

Photo below

She is a little slower upwind but requires a much smaller physical effort. She does comparatively better as the waves and wind get up because a narrow sailing canoe doesn’t generate as much drag. Waves tend to slow her a lot less than the blunt shape of the Laser. Downwind, there are no excuses as she will pass almost anything picking up and surfing down the smallest waves.

And screaming up and over their backs in stronger winds.

easy handling for a narrow sailing canoe – for experienced sailors anyhow :)

The rig is exceptionally forgiving when gybing in solid breezes. In 25 knots, I would expect to ditch a Laser about one in four gybes, and with Beth, I would expect a capsize of about one in 20 gybes. Part of the forgiveness seems to be the rig’s flexibility (the “boing” factor), and some is also because the balance lug mainsail is not all on the same side of the mast.

The mizzen is interesting to handle. It can be trimmed to provide a light helm upwind. If oversheeted in a breeze, it stalls the rudder which kicks up an impressive roostertail.

But despite the reduced rudder grip, the boat does nothing dramatic. The rudder bites in again as soon as the mizzen is eased a bit.

Beth turns out an unusual mix of the old and new – the performance of modern boats but the manners of old boats!

Just look at all the things that conventional wisdom would say are anti-performance sailing: lug sails with the mast interfering with airflow on one side (that is actually the good side – the pundits that say the crease in the sail is terrible are wrong and have always been so), flat bottom, no hull flare, sails laced to spars, wooden spars, small rudder, narrow beam, tiller lines, yawl rig, pointed stern. Yet her performance is up there with a modern sailing dinghy.

Serpents in Paradise Department:

Beth has a couple of minor limitations. In light airs (glassy water with no ripples at all), she refuses to sail much on port tack, as the minimal airflow over the lee side of the sail is upset by the mast. It’s faster to paddle when there’s no wind – remember, she is a canoe. In more wind, she sails almost identically on either tack. If anything, the tack with the mast to leeward is the fast tack (we regularly race oz Goose sailboats with their lug rigs).

In a sloppy and confused chop, such as the traffic-churned Sydney Harbour, there is a tendency to wallow a bit. She deals with aplomb with a substantial chop, for example Lake Alexandrina in South Australia, provided the chop is all coming from the same direction.

Her performance in a beam reach could be a bit better – I cannot get my weight far enough outboard to get her really up and going. She’s still fast, but there is a definite feeling that she could go a lot faster still if I were about four feet taller.

(See blue text at bottom of page for an explanation of why leaning planks and trapezes are a really bad idea).

Who can sail BETH?

Finally I would only really recommend Beth to people with a reasonable background in competitive dinghy sailing

If you can handle a Laser in a blow without getting into a mess, you qualify! AND… the good side – you don’t need to be as fit as a Laser sailor. Beth is a fast, light, responsive boat – you need the skills to handle her. If you don’t quite have that skill level but live in an area with predominantly light winds, then she would be a great light weather, sunny day boat.

Beth Sailing Canoe Plans:

The current plans have modified a couple of aspects in light of extensive experience with the prototype. In my original drafting, there were sudden curves in side panels where the bow merged into the mid-section and where the mid-section turned into the stern. Sometimes these curves resulted in embarrassing loud sucking sounds, which, apart from personal suggestions, implied a lot of drag. The curves have now been smoothed out!

Based on prototype performance, the rudder has been enlarged slightly, the foil section improved, the diameter of the mainmast increased somewhat, and the centreboard lengthened for better upwind performance.

Plans are highly detailed and fully dimensioned. That means no poring over them with your scale rule and getting scale conversions wrong. The measurements you need to know are written in clear type and in the area that you are looking at.

And easy to build Classic sailing canoe.

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Leaning Planks and Trapezes on a Classic sailing boat? :

Several people have written or emailed me about how a leaning board or trapeze would solve this “problem” of not being as fast as good sailing dinghies on strong wind reaches.

First of all … she is not actually slow—just not quite as fast beam reaching as, say a Laser, still faster than most average boats. But as the reach gets a bit deeper … Laser look out!

Of course the early sailing canoes developed leaning planks not long after the era of Beth’s predecessors – around 1882. Primarily through the work of Paul Butler. But look at what happens when you do…

Mast loadings increased

First the mast, or rather both masts have to be thicker to deal with the higher loads. You can see this directly in the photo above. Beth’s mainmast is around 55mm. But visually the photo above shows a mast well over 60mm. That increase of above deck weight will make Beth considerably less stable or you can fit a much more expensive mast. But that is not all.

Beefing up the Sail Controls.

But probably the biggest difference would be in the sail controls. At the moment Beth has a simple 3:1 mainsheet, a 3:1 downhaul for the mainboom and that is about it. Higher righting moments will double mainsheet loads.

Now when the now 5:1 mainsheet is eased the sail will twist considerably. So now need a boom vang as the vanging effect of the balance lug is now not enough.

So get rid of the balance lug and fit a boom vang – there is no point in just mucking around with vangs – no point in anything less than 8:1. There is some expense in this relative to current trucker’s hitch knot that gives the purchase of the current downhaul. The original downhaul has both vanging and downhaul effects – now the functions are separate.

Punishing the bottom of a simple sailing canoe hullform.

Now with her much higher speed upwind and when reaching the flat hull bottom will pound very badly. Hitting waves at much higher velocities. To gain control when the larger sails want to take charge the rudder area should be increased. With the higher righting moment it also makes sense to increase the height of the sail area. So the centreboard should be deepened and reinforced to deal with the higher side loads – all things that modern dinghies and raceboats take for granted.

Costs of performance sailing.

The result is now that Beth is faster, but the cost is excessive, not only in money terms. Now she is much slower to rig, takes serious amounts of concentration to keep on her feet, the rigging – particularly the mechanical advantage – have made her much more expensive to rig (originally 8 blocks mostly small – none ball bearing, one horn cleat, one small cam cleat and one clam cleat) – with the greater mechanical advantage it makes much more sense to move to better quality (and more expensive) ball bearing blocks.

The sailing tech Arms Race

Modern boats are set up in this way and keep moving in more and more expensive directions. Does performance sailing actually make sense if we see the price of boats double then triple.

What is the end result of this expensive chase

… the boats all still go much the same speed as each other

Everyone has to get the same gear to stay “in the hunt” – so the racing is little different.

The real difference is that in Australia, at least, all the little sailing clubs that used to be in most corners of our waterways have simply died.

Died out through lack of members. There are other factors that have caused this dramatic change, but the expense of the boats and their increasing complexity has been a significant part of it.

Tech doesn’t need to be expensive! Who said it does?

An example of good modern technology are the rudder and centreboard profiles – I supply full-size templates to allow accurate shaping – which improves the performance markedly.  The boat accelerates better out of tacks and goes upwind very nicely, indeed.  Control is positive in strong wind and rough water.  GOOD TECHNOLOGY!

Another place is the spectra/dyneema or vectran halyard for the mainsail. You hoist the sail on the beach, and it stays hoisted for the whole day if necessary – there is no need to adjust for stretch. 

Sail twist reduces with less stretch as the sheet is eased for both performance and handling benefits.  A few years ago such ropes were expensive (despite that, I forked out for a Kevlar halyard for Beth #1 which proved reliable and cost effective) – now there is only a small differential in price so modern ropes are even a better investment.

Buy Plans for the BETH sailing Canoe

$100 available from my agents at top left of each webpage or click here.

Another BETH page or two: