4 Sailing Canoe Plans in Plywood plus an outrigger canoe

We focus on our lightweight and beautiful sailing canoe plans that you can easily build yourself using plywood and wood and even have amas to convert you canoe to a outrigger canoe. 4 Sailing Canoe Plans and an outrigger not ugly and definitely not even slightly slow.

5 Choices for Canoe Sailing

Kombi Sailing canoe by Tim Ely is readied for maiden sail beside wharf

New Kombi Sailing Canoe

take the family paddling or go sailing

5 sq metres 16ft x 55lb hull

viola sailing canoe 14ft 75lbs performance singlehanded sailing dinghy plan - storer boat plans

Viola 14 Sailing Canoe

Modern Squaretop Rig 4.7 or 6.0 sq metres.

75lb hull

Viola 14 sailing canoe with 6.3sqm Lug Sail

Viola 14 Sailing Canoe

Lug rig 6.3 sq metres

Reef, Lower and Raise on the water

Beth sailing canoe ... storerboatplans.com

Beth Sailing Canoe

Simple box with classic good looks and

Modern dinghy performance

Drop in sailing rig plan to convert canoe or small dinghy to sailboat - storer boat plans

Drop in Sailing Rig

Convert your Canoe or Kayak into a Sailboat.

Single partner supports both rig and leeboard.

When removed there is only the mast step left in the boat. Nothing built in.

drop in outriggers to convert a small dinghy or canoe into a sailing trimaran includes sailing rig plan for outrigger canoe - storer boat plans

Drop In Outriggers

To give a canoe or narrow dinghy multihull performance

Everything light and removable.

Also to for diving or fishing

Sailing Canoe vs Sailing Dinghies

1/ Canoes are Inexpensive – less building materials for wood or plywood sailing canoe plan

BETH fast building and fast on the water classic sailing canoe: storerboatplans.com

A plywood sailing canoe, whether stitch and glue or  strip plank will be half the weight of a sailing dinghy. The canoe comes out of 3 to 5 sheets of 4mm (5/32″) ply.

Or it should if  properly designed!

Compared to my Goat Island Skiff design which is regarded as a very light sailing dinghy tops the scales at 130lbs In comparison a plywood sailing dinghy might come from 5 or 6 sheets of 6mm (1/4″) plywood sheets at around half that

Sailing Canoes have a advantage for Portability, storage  and transport while still having performance much better than most sailing dinghies.

2/ Fast Plywood Sailing Canoes – Light and easy transportation and compact storage

Wooden and Plywood Sailing Canoes are light and narrow so are excellent for transportation and storage

Sailing Canoes leave plenty of space on the car roof even compared to a Laser.

My favourite designer, Phil Bolger said something like

There are two types of good boat

Those you live aboard, and …

… those you stick on your car roof to take home

A sailing canoe is easy to store on racks as it takes up little space and performance can embarrass much more expensive boats - storer boat plans

Sailing dinghies are nice, but even scow moths which are tremendously light are hard to store and move around by yourself because of bulk and the wings have to be folded before they are safe to roofrack. My university days were always with a scow moth on my car roof. But I always needed help to move the boat from the car to the water.

Not so with a Canoe.

This is where Sailing Canoes excel. The smaller width allows them to be loaded and unloaded from a the cartop alone. A bit of length is useful as one end can be put down and the second end lifted off the car sideways.

Likewise, a reasonably light one can be at least a small distance.

bicycle wheel trolley for sailing canoe or paddling canoe portages or transport

When I was young (maybe 45!) I was able to put a 65 to 75 canoe on my shoulder and carry  it to the water.

Now I can carry one some way on my knees.

A simple trolley that fits in the car allows very long portages when needed shown here on one of my Eureka Canoe designs. In dinghy sizes these become inconvenient to store, but at canoe widths of 3ft (900mm) or 40″ (a metre) not hard to put in the car at all.

3/ Light wind performance – Sailing Canoes Shine.

In RAID (long distance multi day sailing events) we have found that under sail that sailing canoes produce very high and very reliable speed averages.

Read how Joost ended up an hour ahead of the fleet in a major Netherlands event

The hint is that in any photos or videos they make very few waves and little fuss at low speed.

And those high average speeds are without paddling! Of course paddling means the canoe will be up around 6 to 8km/hr when the sailing dinghy is doing half that if paddle

In theory you can build a sailing dinghy with lots of sail and a planing hull, but what really happens?

The planing hull dinghy may (and only may) be faster in the gusts.

But in the lulls the high wetted surface area makes the dinghy sticky, where the canoe will keep moving at much higher speeds while barely disturbing the water surface.

Low drag makes sailing canoes fast in light winds - here a plywood Viola 14 Canoe 5 days on the Fresian lakes and canals

4/ Sailing Canoes in strong winds have fewer handling vices than most sailing Dinghies

When I first started sailing canoes boat handling was a revelation.

Where a bit of heel starts a fight with the tiller to keep a sailing dinghy going straight the balanced volumes of the canoe ends means the boat just steers where you want to go.

See the faster sections of this Viola 14 Video. When the gust comes the crew doesn’t have to move back at all to keep the bow out and a bit of heel and the tiller doesn’t have to change angle.

Easy fast sailing with the boat doing most of the work. Calm and predictable.


Video image can take a moment to load.

Designing 4 sailing canoe plans and sailing regular canoes has taught me something about hull volumes – it puts a big handling question mark over boats with excessively wide sterns.

The lower drag also means that upwind you can reach Laser dinghy like speeds but definitely without the physical effort of sailing a Laser upwind in strong winds.

The reason? Waves don’t slow the slender canoe hull much, so you don’t need to get as much power as a blunt dinghy shape.

Our 4 sailing canoe plans in Plywood excel in Performance/Cost and Performance x Convenience

I love fast boats.

I love fast boats that are easy to get on my car roof even more.

Sailing canoes will go around a course with a Laser, or they will keep going when the bigger and heavier boats are having trouble.

The Viola sailing canoe is a very user friendly boat for teenagers through to experienced men and women sailors. It is stitch and glue construction.

Viola 14 first sail - a sailing canoe that handles like a good sailing dinghy

Our  Beth Sailing Canoe does require a bit more sailing knowledge because of the narrower beam and bigger sail. In average club racing she is handicapped around the Laser Radial or the OK Dinghy.

Two Beth sailing canoes built from the plan meet at the wooden boat festival at Goolwa

The Beth plywood sailing canoe is built from self made prefabricated panels.

This is a trait of very modern dinghy shapes such as the 49er. They might not have the absolute speed of a fat sterned I14 but they are more controllable than wide sterned variants of the i14., so it is possible to push them much much harder … and survive.

Lighter than a racing dinghy for transport.

Narrow for easy storage and carrying

Less hard work than most singlehanded boats

Predictable handling in strong winds

Devastating light wind distance performance

If you have sailing canoes and paddling canoes for every occasion then you may need a canoe storage rack.

Building a triple rack for canoes, sailing canoes, kayaks, SUPs and narrow rowboats in my garage