Header Photo: D-class Swedish Sailing Kanot

Torsten Sörvik

The previous header photo was of the Swedish D-class sailing canoes (kanot) racing to the weather mark. Several countries, Sweden, England, United States, Germany, created cruising or open sailing canoe classes during the early 1900's. (As compared to the faster and more out-of-control decked sailing canoe, which evolved to the modern International Canoe.) At least in this photo, the modern D-kanot now races with a very refined, hi-tech, square top rig. The Swedish "cruising" sailing canoe classes as I could find from the Internet are:

• B-class. A 3.9 meter cat-rigged sailing canoe for young sailors. Max sail area 8 square meters. For a glimpse of a Swedish B-class kanot (blue hull with, what appears to be an OK rig at 1:20 and 1:58 into the video), click on the video in this post. Also, more info here.
• C-class - 4.8 meters to 5.2 meters. Max sail area 10 square meters. Minimum weight 81 kg.
• D-class - 5.4 meters to 6 meters. Max sail area 13 square meters. Minimum weight 360 kg. I've lifted the header photo from the website of boatbuilder Torsten Sörvik, who appears to be the kingpin of the Swedish D-class kanot's.
• E- class - 5.4 meters to 6 meters. Max sail area 13 square meters. Minimum weight 130 kg.

The Swedish sailing canoes all feature hiking boards which extend the hiking skipper out about 300 mm or so. There is a German canoe class, the Taifun, of which I know very little, that also uses these hiking boards. A video from this years Eurocup on a lake in Berlin shows both the International Canoe and the Taifun class racing. I must admit the Taifun looks to be a very sensible singlehander (or a two-hander for smaller crews). Click here for a more detailed post about the German Taifun sailing canoe.



And a Taifun at speed.



And a Taifun at speed, take 2.



All this crusing canoe research was brought about when I was called upon to help identify a sailing canoe model that was picked up by sailmaker, Douglas Fowler. More about this later.