Hello Jeff and welcome :-)
You can have that little boat sailing in no time flat if you keep things simple. And the coast of Oklahoma has to be a dandy place to learn pilotage (coastal navigation). But if you find the going a bit dusty and
anchorages few and far between, come to the
Puget Sound, or better still - the Gulf Islands in the Straits of
Georgia :-)
MySaintedMother used to say: "If ye can't mend it with a bit of cod line and a shiv, don't go to sea in it!" IOW keep it simple! When I learned to sail, in a time long ago and a place far away, we didn't even KNOW that there were such things a winches and
outboard motors, and the height of sophistication was a gaff rigged boat. Only the filthy rich had
Bermuda rigs also known as Marconi rigs, i.e rigs with triangular
sails. In-shore fisherfolk very often used sprit rigs.
Since you have a mill, you can make you own
mast and other spars easily enuff, though for spars there are better choices than red oak :-)! And remember that in that place far away and long ago, lads like me CERTAINLY couldn't afford wire
rope, and dacron (for sailcloth) hadn't yet been invented! Hemp for line and Egyptian cotton for sails was the
rule. But of course if the boat is cat rigged, as many were, you don't need standing
rigging at all :-)
For the two or three days a year when it didn't blow, oars constituted the propulsive force, but in your case the simple solution is an
outboard motor.
Cheap and nasty and smelly, but given
current conditions, the only reasonable choice for a boat such as yours.
'Nuff o' that! Keep us posted on how you go :-)
TrentePieds
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