Sprit placement

Mark Riffe

Curious about Wooden Canoes
I am building a sprit rig for my canoe according to Todd Bradshaw's postings and his book. The sail will be boomless. The only detail that still escapes me is the location (and therefore, length) of the sprit on the mast. I've seen it in plans and photos with the heel of the sprit at a distance down the mast equal to the length of the head of the sail, at approximately mid-mast or slightly lower, and at the tack of the sail. I can imagine advantages for each, but would rather not make multiple sprits to test my assumptions. Any suggestions? Observations? Preferences?
Thank you for sharing your experience(s)!
 
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There is a lot of variation, but I like mine pretty long (down to the vicinity of the tack corner) as it tends to allow more of the sail area to be brailed. I will usually stick the brail eyelet on the leech about as far down from the peak as the width of the sail's head. With that and the long sprit you can brail the sail and though it won't be terribly neat, it removes most of your sail area from the wind-catching equation. Drawbacks are obviously having to deal with a longer spar, but I think it is usually worth the trouble. A shorter sprit would be easier to handle. but even when fully brailed you will still have a pretty good chunk of your sail area hanging out and flapping in the breeze.

Some spritsails with long sprits. The first one here was built to mimic one found in an old photo of a sneakbox, duck hunting boat. It had a short head and that long, drawn-out clew corner. For downwind they would let the sail's foot hook into a big U-shape, as it was let out to the side. I don't know if they actually ever sailed the boat as it was restored to be a show queen.

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Thanks, Todd, for your response. I wasn't sure if there were rigging/performance concerns at work as well: I've read that a sprit anchored further up the mast would require increased tension to keep the peak of the sail at maximum height, but didn't know how that tension across the sail interacted with tension from the clew. The third photo shows tension lines from clew to throat (despite a sheeting angle that seems to point to mid-mast), so perhaps that's the case with all sprit rigs. I do like the look of a full-length sprit (coming from my current use of a lateen rig).
An interesting detail in the first photo: the sprit looks to be adjustable. This would address the brailing-vs-stowage issue. How does it work?
P.S. I've just finished cutting the sail to shape and ordered edge tape. The tape on your sails look narrow: folded 2-inch? I'll be doubling the luff tape (as you suggested elsewhere) and tend to fold 3-inch tape for the finished edge—which looks to be the reverse of yours (2-inch all around and a wider tape at the luff).
 
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The two-piece sprit was done simply because at that moment I didn't have one long enough to hang the newly finished sail up in the yard and get a look at it. It was two bamboo garden poles taped together. I suppose something similar could be done properly if sprit storage was a problem. I usually don't double-tape the luffs of spritsails. Since they are directly supported by the mast they don't need to be under as much tension as a lugsail luff flying alone out ahead of the mast is. Two inch tape folded over the edge is fairly narrow for luff grommets, so 3" would probably be better, but either can work.
 
Todd: again, thanks. The doubled luff tape was a suggestion you made in a thread on roping sail edges as an alternative to otherwise unnecessary reinforcement. I'm all for less work when merited.
An aside: I like the pennant sewn onto the peak in the first photo—a commonsense and elegant detail.
 
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