Hello -- I found this boat/campanoe for sale local here in St.Louis and going to look at it nxt week. Anything I should know about it? Can it handle rivers OK? So excited to see it in person -- July 2022 --
Wow it has been a long time. I never had it in a river just ocean, inter coastal waterway and lakes. It performed great. You will be very le and close to the water. I had 3 fifferent motors on it (7 hp Tohatsu, a 3 hp Honda Anf lastly a Torqeeda electric motor. The boat enen withe the 7 hp and 2 people on it would go about 12 mph before the drag on the canoe hulls would suck the rear down and prevent efficient planing. I put a hobie cat mast on it and rudders and turned it into a sail boat that moved along nicely. I braced mine for the mast mount so it no longer would clam-shell close for travel but it came on a double size trailer. Mine was the last one the company built about 5 years after he had closed the business so it had a bimini but no enclosure. so I mad my own. I have a lot of old pictures so if you need them my email is ra274jags@hotmail.com which is probably the best way to contact me.
Hey, great demo! One thing I notice is the yard position relative to the apex of the sail doesn't allow you to stand it up all the way. I played around with that quite a bit to come up with about one fifth to one quarter from the apex. This allows a relatively short mast while still clearing the deck when vertical. Downhaul leverage seemed quite tolerable at 2:1 purchase. It did require stiffer limbs, however, to keep the upper sections from bending down wind and spoiling sail shape.
Yes it worked nicely. Unfortunately what you see in the video is the shortened sail. The original was about 5 feet longer. I snapped the two spars while sailing (my fault since I cheaped out on the rod material and should have used aluminum). Anyway, I shortened it to what you see in the video. If you are interested most of the design was taken from a boat named Trylobyte (Triloboats) which you can Google and see. I simply enlarged the idea up to about 170 square feet of sail.
Whoops, missed your reply. I'm the designer/builder of TRILOBYTE. We never got around to video of our prototype, which is why I was delighted to find yours! Thanks for putting it up!
Worked for us, though it's a difficult rig to master, and it wasn't a good match for our prototype hull (were trying out a lateral resistance device that didn't pan out... with good LR - leeboards, keel, daggerboards, etc - it should drive well to windward). Here's our full report: triloboats.blogspot.com/2013/06/crabclaw-rig-t-modification.html
an interesting rig, i have just tried to put a crab-claw onto my my kayak with the hope of making a larger version to go onto me Hurley Felicity (20ft Cabin boat), your rigging seems good and manageable, interesting. i am a single hander and i need a rig that i can put up by myself, as my Felicity has a very large and heavy mast.
