How far in a small boat

[Seajet]

Mark-1,

I too punch the last of the flood to get out of Chichester, usually it must be said motoring with the main up; I have a bit less far to get to the entrance but it's still an hour away, useful if one has just jumped on the boat and need to stow and rig everything, annoying on the rare occasions everything is ready to go.

Of course the great thing to going asap is to avoid being launched by the ebb into a fresh southerly, I've tried strong Chichester ebb against strong wind and come to the conclusion I don't like it.

it has to be said, why are you keeping a slow twin keel boat in a rather expensive marina ?

You could get a much more capable lift keeler like the A22 or a cheap fin keeler - boats less than 30' with fin keels go for buttons around here, and rightly so unless one can afford a marina; as you can, presumably this has occurred to you but I'm not sure how much you realise how much the performance and if rquired space gains would be.

Having said that, the Corribbee is the sort of boat to capture ones' heart like the Trident 24 and Anderson 22, with the knowledge ' if it hits the fan I can easily work on the boat myself ashore and go on a half tide mooring as Plan B '.

This is why the larger more modern twin keelers have just about clung onto a semblance of the secondhand prices they used to go for; if for some strange reason I wanted a larger boat I'd go for the seaworthy Sadler 29 ( with an eye on the foam between hulls ) or the Moody 31 which seems popular but doesn't appear a ' punch to windward in a blow ' sort of boat to me.

If looking for an affordable fin keeler the She 31B or MG30 look very good to me, they do not command a lot of money to buy - but even things like getting the mast on and off become a major task, I and a girlfriend used to raise and lower my A22 mast, before I fitted radar which although the smallest lightest JRC 12" job has a surprising effect on the leverage - still a DIY rather than yard job though.

 

[Mark-1]

Of course the great thing to going asap is to avoid being launched by the ebb into a fresh southerly, I've tried strong Chichester ebb against strong wind and come to the conclusion I don't like it.

Not nice going out, good fun coming in!

it has to be said, why are you keeping a slow twin keel boat in a rather expensive marina ?

This boat came up at the right time and with a few months marina berth thrown it and it was mainly bought as a short term plan. I figured if I kept it a season or two that would be plenty - ownership isn't for me long term - in the medium term I'll go back to Chartering/OPBs. CHi Marina is a walk/cycle from my front door and if I didn't have instant step on board access I have I'd never use the boat. Sailing has to fit around my life at the moment, not the other way around. The trade off is ££££s.

You could get a much more capable lift keeler like the A22 or a cheap fin keeler

I do often think a lifting keel would have been the better compromise. I wanted to avoid lifting keels due to fear of wear/rust/jamming/damage. The trade off is that every time I see a lifting keel boat on the water it's going faster than me and pointing better!

if it hits the fan I can easily work on the boat myself ashore and go on a half tide mooring as Plan B '.

Exactly. Or it'll go on a Five ton HIAB flat bed or a standard flatbed trailer. Lots of ways to manage it if circumstances change.

if for some strange reason I wanted a larger boat I'd go for the seaworthy Sadler 29 ( with an eye on the foam between hulls ) or the Moody 31 which seems popular but doesn't appear a ' punch to windward in a blow ' sort of boat to me.
.

I've sailed fin keel versions of both, liked both.



Boat ownership is an endless list of finely balanced compromises!

 

[Seajet]

I agree with you apart from two points ( great mid post quoting skills btw :encouragement: )

Chichester Bar is NOT fun in a strong southerly wind against ebb !

I met an American guy in Alderney singlehanded in a quite nifty racey looking boat which should have rudder authority, not the usual ' sit there and take it ' Colin Archer type ( Alderney is a place which gives me the creeps for historical and sailing reasons ) -

" You guys are from Chichester ? That's the roughest place I've ever seen, don't people get killed there ?!

He'd just crossed the Atlantic...

And the answer is of course ' yes occasionally '.

The twin keel Sadlers ( for sailors ) and later Westerlys ( for families ) - especially the Fulmar which is probably the best sailing seaworthy twin keeler I've ever seen - sail so well,

they'd be my choices ( if an Ovni was not affordable ) for a shoal draught boat above say 25-26' as the engineering becomes too much for a lift keel.

 

[JumbleDuck]

I’m in agreement with Boathook, the idea of boat size has changed over the years ...

I agree with you, but I think it's important to distinguish that there are both cohort and age affects at work. When you meet people who say "When I started sailing we all had 21' boats but now everybody has a 38-footer", what they are really saying is "Forty year ago my 25 year olds friend had small boats and now my 65 year old friends have big boats", and they attribute the change to the elapsed time and not to there increased age and wealth. You see a version of this in crime fears - many older people think that there is far more crime about than when they were children but in fact they just hear about for of it.

As ever. xkcd covers it:

 

[Major_Clanger]

Major_Clanger, I don’t know if you have ever read it, but if not try getting hold of a copy of ‘The Art of Coarse Cuising’ by michael Green, he and his crew seem to sail all over the place in his Vivacity ‘My Poll’ including the North Sea to the Netherlands.

Thanks for that, I'll give it a go. Should be simple to find now that I have the correct title!

 

[Praxinoscope]

Thanks for that, I'll give it a go. Should be simple to find now that I have the correct title!

Michael Green also wrote ‘The Art of Coarse Sailing’ which is a hilarious account of a week’s sailing holiday on The Broads in the early 60’s. he also wrote several other ‘Art of.....’ books including Rugby and Acting.

 

[LONG_KEELER]

What a fun thread!

I grew-up sailing on my parent's Rival, but had a long hiatus and didn't buy my own boat until 1988. She was a Vivacity 20 and I and a friend had grandiose plans to take her down through the French canals, out at Marseilles and spend a year or so in the Med. I even bought all the courtesy flags! Looking back it seems a laughable idea, and so it turned out to be....

By the end of that summer we'd sailed from Maldon to Brightlingsea or Rowhedge ad infinitum and felt brave enough to sail off the edge of the world - which in practise meant down the Wallet to the River Orwell and the flesh pots of Pin Mill. I have such fond memories of 'Take Two' that it's hard to be objective, but I don't think she was particularly sea-kindly and certainly not fast. Come September and I'd blown most of my money and hadn't even left the east coast! My great adventure was unravelling so I galvanised myself, wrote a passage plan and set-off from Bradwell to Nieuwpoort in, arguably, marginal conditions for a small boat. Wind was a steady SW4 but it was the sea which brought the problems. All was okay going across the Thames Estuary, but by the time we were off the Falls we had a confused, steep and typically nasty North Sea which the poor Vivacity did not like at all. My pal and I didn't like it either; we were both frightened, seasick and in all probability, a bit out of our depth. I didn't think the boat would have gone to windward in the slop, so there was no sensible option but to continue. This we did but it really wasn't fun, although by the time we were off Nieuwpoort the sea was flat calm. Once tied up my pal announced he was no longer interested in the great adventure, left the boat and moved in with his girlfriend instead. We never went sailing together again!

Really enjoyed that. Thanks

 

[Seajet]

In 1994 I met a young couple doing the French canals very happily in a Hurley 18, and a middle aged couple equally happy in a Magyar 7metre, also heading for the Med', - there seemed very little to argue against such a wonderful lifestyle, and one can always get ice ( more valuable than gold in Burgundy in the summer ) and beer if one asks hotel barge peniches nicely, the crews are usually British.

An early 1970's Vivacity is not the best example of an all weather boat, there were / are some good small ones like the fin keel Splinter, for racing the E-Boat ( with keelcase seal modifications ) Cygnet 20+ and others I can't remember right now.

 

[Daydream believer]

People often ask if they can trailer sail the Anderson 22; my answer is no, it's too big and heavy and the rig is too complex; trailing to relocate once for a different holiday cruise is OK with planning, I'm against trailing home for the winter as if kept on a trailer one cannot access and maintain the keel plate.

I think one has to keep well below 20' to easil trailer sail, and with the hassle of finding slipways etc the idea is a bit flawed anyway.

Gavin Watkins has trailed his A22, 30 miles to his home & back every year for something like 30 years, behind his equally old Volvo 240 estate. (We pick it up on the launching gantry to drop the keel before placing on the launching trailer)
Last year we managed to persuade him that, at over 80 years of age, he must finally give up. :ambivalence:
(A well equipped Anderson with good engines etc., all ready to go, still remains unsold).

In the 70's I towed my Stella home 35 miles from Burnham behind my Bedford Midi vans several times. Later in 1999 my second Stella behind my Discovery from Cheshire to home in Essex. All quite easily & without problem.

 

[JumbleDuck]

Michael Green also wrote ‘The Art of Coarse Sailing’ which is a hilarious account of a week’s sailing holiday on The Broads in the early 60’s.

One of my favourite books!

 

[JumbleDuck]

Gavin Watkins has trailed his A22, 30 miles to his home & back every year for something like 30 years, behind his equally old Volvo 240 estate. (We pick it up on the launching gantry to drop the keel before placing on the launching trailer)

I think Andy/Seajet was using "trailer sail" to mean "keeping on the trailer when not sailing", which is a different thing from "trailing home at the end of the season". My Hunter 490 (no reasonable offer refused) is much smaller than its big sister, the A22, but I'd want to make a LOT of modifications to the rig if was going to trailer-sail her.

All power to your pal, though. I hope I'm as lively as that at 80!

 

[Seajet]

The deep keelers should be fine to tow home, given the air draught under bridges and a powerful, legally heavy enough vehicle to tow them ( a serious vehicle like a Rangerover, even then check the figures before the police take delight in an easy kill ).

Your club is like mine then, blessed with our own hoist; a fellow owner had his A22 on a good trailer, he always had the boat hoisted on and off the trailer at Spring and Autumn, as an engineer he was horrified by the idea of dunking the trailer chassis, bearings and brakes in salt water.

Nowadays he has sold the trailer almost as new, and just has the boat hoisted on and off shore trestles at the club as I and a lot of other people do.

NB another problem with big trailers besides dunking them & corrosion is finding somewhere secure to leave them, both while the boat is afloat during the summer and if one trails the boat somewhere for a summer holiday.

 

[Daydream believer]

NB another problem with big trailers besides dunking them & corrosion is finding somewhere secure to leave them, both while the boat is afloat during the summer and if one trails the boat somewhere for a summer holiday.

Best thing about being able to take a boat home on a trailer is being able to work on it. One can spend half an hour at any convenient time, have the tools to hand & not have the inconvenience of forgetting something.
My Squib has a road trailer plus a launching trailer (which stays at the club) (as does Gavin's A22 mentioned above) if I did have to use the towing trailer to launch, the time saved in just one trip to the club by hosing down the trailer, taking the wheels off & washing out would still be worthwhile, if I lived some distance away. Some modern trailers are designed to be dunked which is even better.
I agree with Andy's comment about storage though. Many Properties just do not have the space for such things, even dinghies are an embarrassment, so an accommodating club is a must.

 

[Seajet]

Daydream Believer

( BTW did I tell you I once met the late Davy Jones of the Monkees, he used to live locally to my club and was a quiet occasional visitor at the Royal Oak )

Re the issue of maintaining the plate of a lift keeler when on a trailer for the winter, I once went into moderately detailed discussions with the also late Hayling Trailers; I asked about a trailer with full width cradle type hull supports as used by some racing keelboats rather than the simple stabilising pads normally provided - which were on ' acro ' threaded lifts anyway - stub axles, as on normal trailers the axles run under the keel position, and a removable keel tray.

At that time, about 20 years ago, this would increase the trailer cost from a standard £2,500 to £3,500 which I thought fair.

However, although that house had loads of ground it was accessed by a narrow gap between high stone walls, from a narrow village road.

I asked the boss at Hayling Trailers if he could tell either by experience or ( in my dreams ) a computer programme if I'd be able to get the trailer in; he didn't even offer to come and look, just replied " buy it and find out "

I declined, I guess this is an example of why they're the late Hayling Trailers.

My present place has a space I have an eye on, it would mean knocking a wall down and fitting gates, but as you say it would be lovely to just nip out and spend an hour on the boat when I feel like it, rather than the 3 hour round trip I am heartily fed up with after 50 years, especially in winter when I open the car door to a freezing gale and instantly lose motivation to do anything except sit in the cabin with a chum drinking tea.

 

[Daydream believer]

Daydream Believer

( BTW did I tell you I once met the late Davy Jones of the Monkees, he used to live locally to my club and was a quiet occasional visitor at the Royal Oak )
.

No you did not!!!!! but actually the origins of the name has nothing to do with the song. Although the words & title do fit very well. But if another boat came along ( sort of "unlikely" but one never knows) it will be called " Sleepy Jean".

In spite of my families insistence that it should follow some of the other boats Monty python theme - "Spanish inquisition" (Nos 1 & 2) & "Cardinal Fang", All Phantoms & the "Comfy Chair", my Squib

 

[yourmomm]

First trip I ever did (with an experienced skipper), was Lagos to la Coruna....then on to Cameret sur Mer, then st Peter port, then Brighton. Fresh northerlies all the way. Gale force in the channel, (which we just had to hove to and ride out, as progress was impossible, and we sustained some significant damage (hence enforced stop in st Peter port, to make repairs). Took two weeks, all told, in a heavily built colin archer 31ft ketch (42ft including bowsprit and bumpkin). Not sure I'd do that again, as a novice. It was terrifying, (although I've since been in stronger blows, with more experience, and less fear).

Now I sail a storfidra (25ft) in NZ (also a colin archer canoe stern), and it sailed here (not by me) from Copenhagen, via the Cape of Good Hope...

Small ships can go anywhere, if crewed and built right!

 

[Seajet]

People would call the 25' Vertue a small boat nowadays, and look where they've got to - btw I recommend the book ' The Restless Wind ' by A.G. Hamilton, which covers his sailing the Vertue ' Salmo ' across the Atlantic then to Fiji.

 

[dancrane]

Very nice and helpful thread. :encouragement:

It hasn't been easy to conclude that an 18fter will do everything I'll want, when the additional cost of boats 6ft feet longer is insignificant. If bigger secondhand boats were all much costlier just to purchase, I would quickly have accepted "small is big enough"...

...the gnawing doubt is that jumping into the considerable expense of keeping any boat afloat, I may find out that this first step is by far the costliest, and that a 10% or even 30% bigger (and abler) boat would only have cost a small amount more to keep.

But...I can see that replacing an engine, or standing rigging or sails, plus hardware of all kinds and especially the cost of berthing, goes up and up with every extra foot, so I'm content that 18ft makes sense. And it doesn't come down purely to size - if I wasn't so wary of keeping the Osprey upright in a breeze, I'd already have been cruising primitively, far and wide for years.

This thread reminds me that having enough time to use a boat (and it being manageable and accessible) is much more important than what she is. Even the smallest boat can go far if the crew isn't pressed by schedules to bring her back in unsuitable weather.

And considering how vile I've found F5+ at sea even in a heavy 34fter, I doubt that owning a very small yacht will keep me ashore on windy days when I would have taken a bigger boat out, or stayed out rather than hurrying for a harbour.

 

[Seajet]

Dan,

have a look at Jumbleducks' Hunter 490; a brilliant boat from an unmatched designer, I am certain she'll be a dream to handle for any sailor worth their salt.

I met one in St Peter Port once, boat and owner had happily crossed the Channel - 60 nm +, and he went on to trundle around the Minquiers and Isles Chausey.

The next larger boat was the Hnter 19 of ' Willing Griffin ' fame ( later the Europa with slghtly higher topsides and a bit roomier ) then the Hunter 701.

The Anderson 22 is basically an improved rip-off of the 701, still designed by Oliver Lee.

 

[dancrane]

Thanks Andy, actually Jumbleduck PMed me back in September last year, to suggest his boat might suit me.

Unfortunately I definitely want a boat that will dry out upright, and with minimal draft (centreboard) to enable creek-crawling.

That's one reason I'm thinking small is best. Although I've just seen a drop-keel version of the Hunter 490, for sale, £900. There really is a boat out there for everyone.