Favourite boats I haven't tried

[dancrane]

...do not make the mistake of buying something silly, like the first pic in your post 162...

It wasn't my first choice, but I doubt you'll make any friends saying bad things about the Westerly 22!

With respect, your suggestion of putting in a £3,000 offer on possibly the roughest Fulmar anywhere, is not a smart use of very limited funds.

Whatever one saves on a 'cheap' boat will be spent later, bringing the sorry specimen up to the standard one really wanted in the first place.

 

[Kukri]

It’s worth noting that the W22 founded the most successful boat building company Britain ever saw. She won’t go to windward like an offshore racer, because she isn’t meant to. She is meant to be safe, comfortable and affordable. Rayner had been designing and building boats of this size, often very innovative ones, for almost thirty years when he came up with this one.

Denys Rayner - Wikipedia

 

[Wansworth]

each to his own a fellow called george Stock had a very happy life in his 16 foot sailing cruiser in and out the creeks on the east coast and many a fine summer cruise with great memories can be had in a budget cruise

 

[Poignard]

each to his own a fellow called george Stock had a very happy life in his 16 foot sailing cruiser in and out the creeks on the east coast and many a fine summer cruise with great memories can be had in a budget cruise

Charles Stock & Shoal Waters

 

[steve yates]

I don't give a shot about the racing qualities of a boat. I want it for travelling and exploring. Good motion in a seaway is more important to me than accelaration. I do like good lines, and I appreciate a boat that can point so you can get out of trouble to windward, but curvy dumpy little tykes can be great fun and faithfully provide you with lots of adventures and travels. I'd have a westerly 22 in a heartbeat, great wee design I think.

I once spent a night moored to the wall of Colonsay Pier, behind a jeanuea of some kind, with a bathing platform. Was on board for a whisky, nice inside but nothing would induce me to buy that boat. It's arse slapped and slapped all night long in the swells rolling in. It was noisy on board, and even back in my little bradwell 18, which was very comfortable inside, the noise kept me from sleeping properly. Absolutely dreadful design.

 

[Daydream believer]

Charles Stock & Shoal Waters

Now owned by Tony Smith of Creeksailor fame
has a brilliant website for those into sailing up muddy creeks in small boats at Creeksailor
I took him sailing to Camaret with me & a 3 page article was written about the exploit in PBO a few years ago comparing creeks to the Channel

 

[dancrane]

Stock's coastal exploits are (to me) very appealing. Cheap, largely safe, a nice unambitious plan for slow-moving observation of the places where the human landscape meets tidal nature. And with modern forecasting, the mini-cruiser limits don't preclude bolder passage-making; whereas most bigger boats that are free to head out regardless of conditions, can't expect a crawl through the scenic shallows to be serendipitous.

I wonder what the modern (or let's say last 40 years' production) equivalent of Stock's Shoal Waters would be?

 

[johnalison]

I have a very clear memory of rebuilding my first S-L 400 whilst aground on the Thirstlet Spit on the afternoon of the 5th of September 1972.

After another decade with them, I discovered the products of Messrs Blake and Sons of Gosport, and I have used those ever since.?

You'd have been better employed in looking for your spectacles. There was a dirty great beacon on Thirslet in those days to tell you where the spit was. Only foolish virgins ran out of water.

 

[Kukri]

You'd have been better employed in looking for your spectacles. There was a dirty great beacon on Thirslet in those days to tell you where the spit was. Only foolish virgins ran out of water.

But I was a foolish virgin, or perhaps blessed with the immortality of youth, at the time. I had been sailing for three whole years, I had read every sailing book in the library, and I knew everything!?

 

[Wansworth]

Just pretend you meant it...

 

[Bajansailor]

It’s worth noting that the W22 founded the most successful boat building company Britain ever saw. She won’t go to windward like an offshore racer, because she isn’t meant to. She is meant to be safe, comfortable and affordable. Rayner had been designing and building boats of this size, often very innovative ones, for almost thirty years when he came up with this one.

Denys Rayner - Wikipedia

I love this excerpt from the Wiki article, and the photo of Young Tiger anchored at Admiralty Bay in Bequia after her Atlantic crossing.

-

Westerly Marine Construction Ltd. grew to be Britain's biggest yacht building company, and during the 1970s, a leader in family yachts. When Rayner was overseeing the construction of his brilliant little Westerly 22, he strengthened his friendship with Jack Hargreaves, who, as an enthusiastic populariser of "messing about in boats", filmed Young Tiger - W22 68 - departing the Solent for America. Rayner's letter, dated 14 December 1965, awaiting her young skipper, Hargreaves' stepson, at a poste restante in Bridgetown Barbados, read "Welcome to the Caribbean and well done! I think this is a justified remark because if you do not get this letter you won't have done so well! I am so glad you have Susanna with you. I shall of course calm down anyone who gets jumpy because I have complete confidence in you and the boat." Young Tiger, crewed by Simon Baddeley and Sue Pulford, telegrammed news of her arrival at Bridgetown on 5 January to Rayner at the 1966 London Boat Show with the words "EASY 29 DAYS. SIMON". They had sailed 2900 miles from the Las Palmas de Gran Canaria to Barbados in 29 days. Peter Guinness, Rear-Commodore of the Royal Cruising Club, in awarding the RCC Challenge Cup, wrote of a winning cruise that ended in Miami United States on 17 April 1966 "in a small, or even very small, ship".

 

[Kukri]

What a fabulous picture! The Caribbean as we used to imagine it. Note the gunter rig, the baggywrinkle, the Hasler trim tab vane, the paraffin riding light on the forestay, the black Avon and the shoal draft...

and the pretty girl of course. ?

 

[Poignard]

Similarly Hurley 22's (I have seen a few arrive here), Contessa 26's et al - so many of them have made long voyages in the days before GPS and internet, without fanfare.

No internet forums stuffed with wiseacres always ready to tell them what they wouldn't be able to achieve.

 

[Daydream believer]

deleted

 

[JumbleDuck]

I wonder what the modern (or let's say last 40 years' production) equivalent of Stock's Shoal Waters would be?

The Hunter 490, obviously. It's waiting for you ...

 

[dancrane]

What a fabulous picture!

Exactly what I said out loud, before I read your post.

Of course, it's easy to forget what weather she may have faced en route...waves higher than her LOA and marine mammals twenty times her weight, all around. But that dauntless sheerline and generous cabin breadth and the fact that she's afloat a few feet from the sand (27 inches draught) make this as great an image of what a very small, tough boat can be, and her crew can do, as any I can think of.

No idea why I haven't focused on the W22 before now.

 

[Bajansailor]

What a fabulous picture! The Caribbean as we used to imagine it. Note the gunter rig, the baggywrinkle, the Hasler trim tab vane, the paraffin riding light on the forestay, the black Avon and the shoal draft...

and the pretty girl of course. ?

The beach and the background at Bequia in that photo still look the same today - the only difference is that today there would probably be 50+ yachts at anchor in the background. And maybe even one of the smaller cruise ships.
The photo appears to have been taken from Princess Margaret beach in Admiralty Bay looking to the south west - more info about Bequia (including a neat sketch map) in Chris Doyle's excellent concise guide here - » Bequia

 

[Bajansailor]

Here is an update about Young Tiger on Simon's Blog - it is quite fascinating. She was found sitting in a field outside Baltimore a few years ago.
'A friend in a field'

And a copy of Simon's passage report from the RCC's annual Roving Commissions for 1966 -
'Voyage to America': Young Tiger, part one
Although you will probably have to 'save' each page individually, and then magnify them to read them.

Here she is, starting off on her big adventure in 1966 -



And a photo from a few years ago with her new owner Whitney -



Here is Part II of the RCC passage report -
'Voyage to America': Young Tiger, part two

 

[dancrane]

The Hunter 490, obviously. It's waiting for you ...

She does look a trifle sportier than Shoal Waters.

 

[steve yates]

I love this vid of Bill Churchouse and his westerly 22, cost him £1700, what a cracking wee boat.