I’m Matt. I kayak regularly on bayous in the Houston, Texas area. This last weekend I met a guy who was operating a sail-powered, outrigger-equipped kayak. I sailed a few times when I was young, loved it, but living in an urban area, a kayak is about all I can keep or transport. But as soon as I saw that you could add a sail to them I knew what I needed to do. When I got home I started doing some searches… guess the term “outrigger kayak” leads real easily to proas.

This was amazing. I’d never considered that a boat could be made to reverse direction along it’s hull, to shunt, rather than tacking like I had been taught. Once I saw a diagram of the maneuver it made perfect sense to me. I’ve seen pictures of these kinds of boats before, it just never occurred to me that they operated any differently than the “normal” sailboats that I was accustomed to. I spent all day soaking up all the info that I could.

I have been considering making my own canoe for a while, and now that I am aware of proas I think they might be a good candidate for a small craft that could be operated by one person and carry a second. I think that the Gibbons rig might be the way to go - I can’t get it straight in my head how one man might operate the lateen-style rig. Due to limited storage space I am looking around to figure out how practical it is to make a waka that can be disassembled or otherwise broken down but still remain strong.

During my exploration into proas I kept coming back to Proafile. It’s been a great source of info, and makes the concept so much clearer. Thanks! I’m looking forward to learning more.

Welcome to the forums, Matt, and thanks for making the intro!

Another proanaut in the Houston area, welcome! I’ll give you a shout PM or otherwise next time I’m going to trial something at Lake Woodlands.

cheers,
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