Can a Kayak Sail up wind ? Yes they can. Here is how to do it.

Conventional sail knowledge & thinking can be helpful when it comes to kayak sailing. It can speed up the learning curve. On the other hand, conventional sail thinking many times yields wrong answers and assumptions when it comes to kayak sailing. An example of wrong answers is the idea you can only sail downwind with a kayak unless you have a lateral resistance enhancer such as a lee board, dagger board, keel, or center board.

The truth is kayak hulls matched with a great sail and sail rig can sail pretty darn nice. You can sail across the wind very easily, and even make up wind progress without paddling. This is easy to do with a stock hull. A Falcon Sail rig weighing in at under 3.5 pounds can do amazing things.
You can make surprisingly decent up wind performance with zero paddling, but if you start to paddle to keep the sail and kayak properly oriented to the wind, you can have useful propulsion to within 30 degrees of straight up wind. As you turn more aggressively up wind, you must start paddling at some point and paddle more as you point more aggressively. The laws of diminishing returns set in, but you can sail with a stock kayak hull, on a lot of angles of attack without any paddling.

Conventional sail knowledge & thinking can be helpful when it comes to kayak sailing. It can speed up the learning curve. On the other hand, conventional sail thinking many times yields wrong answers and assumptions when it comes to kayak sailing. An example of wrong answers is the idea you can only sail downwind with a kayak unless you have a lateral resistance enhancer such as a lee board, dagger board, keel, or center board.

The truth is kayak hulls matched with a great sail and sail rig can sail pretty darn nice. You can sail across the wind very easily, and even make up wind progress without paddling. This is easy to do with a stock hull. A Falcon Sail rig weighing in at under 3.5 pounds can do amazing things.
You can make surprisingly decent up wind performance with zero paddling, but if you start to paddle to keep the sail and kayak properly oriented to the wind, you can have useful propulsion to within 30 degrees of straight up wind. As you turn more aggressively up wind, you must start paddling at some point and paddle more as you point more aggressively. The laws of diminishing returns set in, but you can sail with a stock kayak hull, on a lot of angles of attack without any paddling.

We will post more information on this topic in the comments.

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www.falconsails.com
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