Now things are clearer. In that case, a pintle mounted rudder could be nice for you. Allowing easy removal for when you are paddling. As well making it a swing rudder, so you could swivel it up and down for those trips you do both. That would be easier and dryer then taking the rudder out of the water and setting it in the boat.

I was just reading about some experiments with forward rudders and midship rudders. Neither worked well, having to do with weatherhelm and such. Which it's far too early in the morning to seriously ponder.

In all honesty, I don't see why you couldn't put the rudder right at the stern. Mount the eye pieces there with the legs going down each side of the canoe a few inches. Basically just like the kayaks mount external rudder hardware when they chose not to drill a hole in the deck. If it places you further back then you'd like to be for grasping the tiller, you can always use a hiking stick with a sidways mounted tiller. Then it's be fore and aft pushing of the stick to steer. That's no big deal.

However, just sticking with a side mounted rudder, as long as you've got it mounted somewhat abaft, you should be allright. After all, the little sail boats like Snarks and such don't have much distance between the rudder and the mast or dagger board. A canoe is longer, and should be able to have that sort of distance with no problems. Obviously you're going to need a longer shaft to get the rudder down low enough to be able to turn under the canoes hull. Though you could minimize this by shaping the upper portion of the rudder to match the hull. Or by offsetting it away from the hull. Of course, the further away you get, the more sensitive to roll it becomes. Just like those leeboards.

Doing this is probably going to mean some loss of performance. You have to weigh out what you're after, and what you're willing to risk and experiment with. Most likely in a sailing canoe regata you'll be a slower boat and not be able to come up as close into the wind with your rudder further forward. But does that really matter to you?

A whole lots going to depend on the boat design as it exists as well. Something with a lot of rocker is going to be a lot more reactive to having the rudder nearer the mast then a boat with lots of built in tracking. Similarly rolling effects.

A canoe's an easy boat to do some crude experimenting with for your rudder. A couple of c-clamps, about a foot of pvc pipe, some scrap plywood and a piece of board. Now you've got a crude but effective rudder to play with and move around the canoe to see just how sensitive it is, and if you can live with it. I think you're going to find out you can live with it fine. Especially if you do some experimenting with a longer tiller and a hiking stick to get the rudder further back.

What kind of sail rig are you planning on? Or is that an experiment too? I'll be putting sailing capabilities on my kayak/canoe/thing, probably this winter.

Oh yea, if you go over to the newsgroup alt.boat.building or alt.boat.paddle and ask about a link to an old canoe book, there's a guy there that put up a really neat old book on canoe building, of which a fairly large portion was dedicated to sailing canoes. Alas, I don't have the link on this computer. I'll try to post it tonight for you though, when I'm at home. I think that's the computer I've got the link on.

If nothing else, check out the link to Lost in the Woods. They do sailing rigs for canoes and kayaks, and have some nice pictures to look at.

> The reason for the rudder (which I neglected to explain) is that
> I want to rig my canoe (cedar strip) to sail. I have a nice little
> sail and have built a lee board but didn't want to fasten anything
> perment to the end of the canoe and mess up the look of the boat -
> thus the side mount question. Thanks for the respose though! I've
> sailed a bit and always thought the rudder had to be as far back as
> possible.