The curve of stability of a canoe, in which the ballast is not shifted, and the man's position is not altered more than an attempt at a perpen dicular balance, made whilst retaining a midship seat, would show con siderable stability at small angles of heel, say 10° to 25°; thence, however, it would rapidly decline, and arrive at a vanishing point at about 45°; but, if the ballast and man both shift up to windward, the curve will be a far more powerful one, and the canoe would be safe, even though a puff put her over suddenly to 45°.
Suppose a canoe to be sailing, and heeled over to an angle of about 20°, and working short tacks where there is no time to trim ballast over, and where the wind is coming in sudden puffs, it will often be found necessary to do a multitude of things at the same moment ; such as to sit over to windward, to luff sharply before steerage way has been lost in consequence of the sails banging about, to ease off the head sheet and flatten in the wizen, and, perhaps, to lift the centre-board for shoal water, and then have to go about suddenly, and perform much the same thing on the other tack, with perhaps the addition of taking in or shaking out a reef or two.
The necessity of performing the operations quickly in a canoe suggest and somewhat dictate the various fittings and arrangements ; for instance, sitting up to windward can best be performed when the craft has been fitted with side deck flaps ; to luff or bear away at the same moment that one's hands are engaged about the sheets and halyards, pointedly suggests the advisability of steering with one's feet. To work the sails smartly, and keep the canoe bottom downwards, it is essential that the chief sail should be, with its gear, forward of the man, and the various ropes and centre-board lifting gear must all be close at hand, so as to be readily worked by the man without leaving his sitting position.
The canoe, limited in its dimensions by the club rules, is essentially a craft of small displacement—a craft, in fact, in which balancing the crew and a little ballast out to windward has more to do with, and is more successful at, sail carrying than any weight of ballast stowed below; the ballast cannot be got low enough to act as does the lead mine in a 5-ton yacht, and it is becoming more and more acknowledged that, for canoe sailing, a pound of shifted ballast is more effectual than ten pounds of weight stowed beneath the floor boards.
To allow a good and sufficient margin for heeling over and for rough water, freeboard in sailing canoes is very seldom less than 6in., and much more often will be found to be 8in. Taking this as a fair margin, the depth of the canoe's body, from water-line to garboards, will be 6in.; weight of boat, gear, and man will not put the foregoing size of canoe down to this depth of immersion; consequently, ballast must be taken in until she has come near to, or down to, her marks. The arrangement of this ballast will be a question of how best it can be handled in working the boat; the heavy man will possibly require no more ballast to put his boat down to her designed load-line than he can conveniently handle as shifting ballast ; whereas the light weight may have much more than he could possibly shift, and, consequently, must stow some below the floor.
Having arrived at the correct weights, and the most useful way of stowing them, the next question will be as to how much sail the canoe, so weighted and balanced, will stand ; it is a point that can scarcely be found out by calculation, but can be most surely ascertained by experiment. A suit of sails will never be wasted, for in making them and trying them much experience will have been gained, even if the sails are never used again ; the same masts and rigging will, or should, be available for each and every suit of sails the canoe is fitted with ; and in making them for a new canoe it should be kept in mind that once a spar is cut no amount of watering will make it grow longer ; so it will be well to have all spars and ropes longer than actually necessary at first; then, when the craft has been carefully tried, the owner will know how much may be cut off.
The rigging scheme should be this—give the craft sails of the full length she can use, and in hoist stop them at the area it is anticipated she will be able to carry to a moderate breeze ; leave the masts long enough for larger sails, then the same spars and gear will do throughout. If she is found to be over-stiff for the first rig, either ballast can be taken out or more sail added, and in such case it is only a matter of increasing the hoist, taking care, however, that the relative sizes are kept up so as not to disturb the position of the centre of effort.