New Photos of Viola and Joost practicing in the Viola 14 Sailing Canoe that they built from a boat plan three years ago – Viola (the person) is coming back to sailing after a decade and a half away from it, her plan is to sail in the RAID Extreme event later in the year.
The premise of the Viola 14 Sailing Canoe is for conventional dinghy handling in a hull half the weight of most 14ft dinghies (75lb/34kg) for dinghy sailors who want more portability without sacrificing performance.
The RAID Extreme – distance sailing event
The RAID Extreme Event organised by our joint friend Koos Winnips is an inland course in a prescribed area. There are several buoys spread out over the area that can be rounded in any order but same leg completed cannot be reversed for the next leg. A mix of canoes, kayaks, sailing dinghies, catamarans and sailing canoes compete. There are canals, rivers, low bridges and lakes.
Joost will sail their 16ft Goat Island Skiff and Viola will sail the Viola 14 Sailing Canoe.
Back to Practice Sailing and Paddling on the Viola Canoe
Joost Writes:
Yesterday sailed a 40+ km tour over various lakes, canals and a river. A very good day out. Boat performs great sailing. Solid Bft 3 on the lakes and happily planing during the reaches. Also a lot of paddling (one 12 km stretch and one 2.5 km stretch). Doable, but the long paddle means heavy work.
Viola paddled the boat today on a short 4 km paddle and is very sore now. It remains a sailboat that can be paddled. But versatile.
Viola is getting some time up sailing and paddling the Viola
We Saw That Viola was pretty competitive in distance events previously.
11th in 150+ boat fleet
Comparative Sailing with conventional boats.
“Lasers definitely point maybe 5 degrees higher. Viola is perhaps a bit faster upwind in terms of speed but loses in making height. On a beam reach and reaching Viola wins. It was upwind difficult to keep the sail fully powered up. The top twisted nicely depowering the sail to manageable proportions upwind. Reaching the boat just takes off. Massive fun. Very wet in the short steep chop and should install a bailer (winter project). A lot of people ask about the boat.”
Here is Joost powering along in the stronger wind.
How is Viola Canoe Sailing Practice Going?
In some of the pics with Viola gusts upto appr. 18 knots. She has read your articles and we have talked about keeping the boat flat using the sheet and she is working on that.
The thing is that about all she once learned has changed from how to hold the joystick to heeling the boat.
We had a lot of wind (so much that the kids could not really sail). 15 knots with gusts upto 20-22 knots. A lot of fun sailing the boat. I used the big fathead sail for a bit but for the sake of convenience (so I did not have to change the top mast) sailed a lot with the smaller fathead. The large one is far more powerful but beyond perhaps 15 knots I need to flatten the top part much to depower it. The smaller sail is easier to sail (especially in the gusts). Anyway, we had a blast with the boat and Viola’s confidence has gone up much. Now it is about learning to react to gusts to keep the boat flat (getting body weight out and easing the sheet).
Looking at how the sails the boat, I also think that she is now better reading the sail (she had issues with it before). But the pics should be nice promotional material, I hope.
