Have you seen polythene pam?

There hasn't been a post here for months, its funny how time flies, during the intervening period I've spent a bit of time in the garage and decided I definitely prefer building to writing about it. Anyway this is what I've been up to.
I realised that Isla was getting a wee bit schizophrenic, and couldn't really decide what she wanted to be, so there wasn't much chance of getting her built in time for the sailing / hbbr season. I needed something I could take to HBBR meetings and at least hold my head up.
I'd harboured a notion for a long time to put a sailing rig on my first born canoe. So here she is! as yet untested and i must admit to being a wee bit apprehensive as she is narrow in the beam but hopefully everything will be fine.

This is the rudder mechanism. As you can see the aft stem has a steep rake and this made a rotating rudder slightly tricky so after pouring over all the old drawings in the Solway Dory publication "Over the Sea to Sky" I decided on a sliding mechanism. Phil Oxborrow himself a keen canoe sailor did me a favour and made up the metalwork in stainless steel for which I'm very grateful.
If you are at all interested in the history of sailing canoe's then get a copy of Over The Sea to Skye from Solway Dory, (see Links) it describes some of the adventures of the Clyde Canoe Club in the 1870's.