Author of ‘Canoe Rig’ reveals evident affection for his topic Bradshaw’s boyish enthusiasm propels comprehensive guide to cherished sailing vessel

CANOE RIG: THE ESSENCE AND THE ART – SAILPOWER FOR ANTIQUE AND TRADITIONAL CANOES, by Todd E. Bradshaw, WoodenBoat Books, Brooklin, 2000, 262 pages, $34.95.

This is the book I wish I had 30 years ago when I rigged a prewar Old Town canoe for sailing. We had several other small boats, none new except the Hobie Cat which I much enjoyed. But she was a hip California design (and a good one) which was all performance and no romance. For me, a sailing canoe was the essence of romance and had been since my boyhood. That’s when my brother Chick and I would see Mr. Jewett sail by in the early evening as we sat at the supper table near the large dining room window that overlooked the lake.

About all we could actually see of Mr. Jewett was his head, and that was protected by one of those floppy, white cotton hats gentlemen wore during those long-ago summers, rather like a soft, white bowl upside down. That’s what showed above the sailing canoe’s gunwales because the rest of Mr. Jewett was pretty much prone on the canoe’s stern deck. Now that I’ve read this book, I realize he must have been steering with each foot against a pedal linked to the slim, varnished wooden rudder at the stern. He held the sheet looped through a pulley on the boom of his leg-of-mutton sail and that was it. Like some enchanted vessel on a fairy-tale lake, he went gliding past, alone on the sunset’s reflected glory. It was, I thought, the most wonderful way in the entire world to be on the water in a small boat.

The image stayed with me for 40 years, which is when I came by the Old Town. She was not rigged for sailing, but reaching back for those boyhood memories, I went to work and rigged her. Which is when I would have been infinitely more well equipped for the job if I’d had this marvelously detailed and so generously illustrated book by my side. I hand-carved twin leeboards from two, clear white pine boards. They took a more graceful shape than I’d hoped for, and I was encouraged; after all, they looked something like Mr. Jewett’s. I cut a spruce mast and sprit in the woods and fashioned a crude sprit sail from light canvas: an altogether primitive rig that I steered with a paddle.

But oh how well that Old Town sailed. As Bradshaw notes, those classic wooden canoes were indeed enchanted – as were many of the old and ancient sailing canoes so fully and deftly described in this comprehensive work. Leeboards, you say? Hey, there’s an entire chapter on leeboards, and I’ll bet you long odds that neither you nor your boating friends ever knew there were so many different patterns. Indeed, I’d be willing to bet there’s more information in these pages about past, present, and future sailing canoes than has ever before been organized between two covers. And it is information presented with such irrefutable evidence of firsthand knowledge that you know it’s the right stuff.

As a bonus, the author shares his boyish enthusiasm for his subject with such charming openness that you find yourself enjoying even the most technical pages, and there are plenty of them, including, for example, “fabric panel orientation” and “the Willits brothers rudder gudgeon.” This is a thorough, encyclopedic book. Within its 13 chapters, 262 pages, appendix, and surely more than 100 full-color illustrations (I did not count every one), you should learn almost more than you thought possible about the sailing canoe. Yet you’ll find that absorbing all this knowledge is a pleasure, never a chore. That’s the kind of book this is. I can’t help but think it is such a delight because Bradshaw has such a deep affection for his subject. He just plain loves sailing canoes, and it shows.

I’ve discovered over the years (plenty of them) that when an author writes about someone or something he or she loves, the book turns out just fine. This sort of book doesn’t happen every day. There aren’t that many out there. But this is one of them. It just happens to be about sailing canoes. It’s a pleasure to read even if you live a hundred miles from the water and have never set foot in a small boat. It makes me wish I were 50 again. I’d start looking for another Old Town.