Ideas for sailing dinghy suitable to leave on a mooring please

ShinyShoe said:
Having spent a fair amount of my younger years stood on a Kestrel Alloy Plate I can swear they are not self righting! Would you not need to do a lot of hacking to add a ballasted plate?
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Yup, makes sense, just kidding myself. Since I stood on the end of the Osprey's centreboard and she barely moved, I ought to have recorded in big letters in my mind, that a ballasted plate needs a hell of a lot of weight before the boat will self-right.

Your good idea which I've used, was on a thread I started - a spinnaker-chute mouth made from plumbing pipe, standing on the foredeck. To be scrupulously honest, I haven't tried it out yet, but it's been a busy summer...dear me, two summers... :rolleyes: http://forums.ybw.com/forums/showthread.php?445626-Dinghy-spinnaker-foredeck-tube-any-hints/page3
 
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I think there's some over-thinking going on in this thread.
Wayfarers can live on moorings very happily. We've done for years in Stornoway which can get a tad windy. Mine did capsize once when I couldn't get out for a few weeks and it got hit by a mini tornado, which made the local news.
If you can't get out to the boat every weekend to bail, then rig up a pump or fit a cover. As to storage of sails and rudder, evetything fits under the foredeck. A long sail bag over the boom keeps the UV off the main.

I downsized to a Wanderer because at <10st I struggle to get the Wayfarer really going properly in a strong breeze- the Wanderer is a better fit. But bigger/heavier guys won't have a problem. My mate happily singlehanded his Wayfarer from Stornoway to Skye in strong conditions.

The Wanderer may well sit happily on a mooring but I cannot vouch for that.
 
Anybody know how the very beautiful Seaview dinghies stay upright on their moorings? I only sailed one once, a third of a century ago...but I've seen them moored in all weathers and never noticed one on her side.

94d039b02c253a4752e01412cbea3f1f--wild-weather-dinghy.jpg


If the OP is interested, he ought to be warned that (to the best of my memory) these clinker classics were £5,000, even in the mid-80s.
 
Hi all,
Thanks for the continued suggestions. The mooring is in fairly sheltered location from wind and swell (and is free). Regarding keeping a dinghy ashore, I already have a laser 3000 currently collecting dust at home since I "moved up" to the seal 22: the charges to keep it somewhere ashore by the water are off putting, as is the need to wetsuit up on every occasion. I am in the process of dusting the laser 3000 off to give it one more go, but quite fancy something I could sail from the mooring myself, with some large probability of not getting an unexpected swim... Perhaps wayfarer is the answer? Does anyone have experience of more modern alternatives like laser stratos etc if I want something faster?

Cheers,
Trev
 
I've seen a stratos that lives on a very sheltered mooring all year round and in five years I've never seen it capsized.

ShineyShoe - the big challenge with righting is not so much the size of the vessel but the distribution of the buoyancy. Particularly the new rotomolded boats often float very high on their side, making mounting the board very tricky, and inversion more likely. By the sound of things though the op is trying to avoid capsizes though but that doesn't really mix with luckier than a wayfarer....
 
Ylop- good point - I would perhaps be willing to have something a bit more prone to give me the occasional swim in return for mod cons like an asymmetric etc and a bit more performance. I am just shy of sixteen stone so righting moment is firmly on my side...

Because the mooring reduces to 0.5m on springs (and nothing on big springs) what I don't want to find is that it has capsized and spent days beating the rig to bits on the bottom (about3 knots of tide) and bending stuff....

Cheers,
Trev
 
Trevelyan said:
...mod cons like an asymmetric etc and a bit more performance...
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I've definitely been into all this before, here on the forum. The conclusion was that there are few if any designs which offer the combination of high stability and high performance. The manufacturers seem to have decided that not enough of us would like such a boat. A real pity, because the Topper Breeze looked terrific to me...click to read a review of it...

http://www.boats.com/the-topper-breeze/#.WZviJj6GPRY

Significantly, Sunsail found that "keeping the boat afloat is a sensible option and they claim to have had no difficulties despite having to leave the boats with the keels raised on fairly exposed moorings". Unfortunately, that report is from October 2000, and I've never yet seen a Breeze. I'd still want one.

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Trevelyan said:
Ylop- good point - I would perhaps be willing to have something a bit more prone to give me the occasional swim in return for mod cons like an asymmetric etc and a bit more performance. I am just shy of sixteen stone so righting moment is firmly on my side...

Because the mooring reduces to 0.5m on springs (and nothing on big springs) what I don't want to find is that it has capsized and spent days beating the rig to bits on the bottom (about3 knots of tide) and bending stuff....

Cheers,
Trev
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I am impressed you understood that as autocorrect changed livlier to luckier!

Stratos could be a good shout then (they float lower than many on their side so less height to haul 16 stones up to). My one reservation would be I personally don't think trapeze's really are a great idea without good rescue cover around. I've sailed one, but never single handed so not sure how tricky that is. Another option might be some of the cars - they have been the most exciting sailing I have ever done, they are low draft and with sails down should be nice and stable on a mooring. My reservation there is that if they invert they are a real challenge to get back up - although there is nack to it.
 
I am a fan of the Laser Stratos - a powerful rig but much easier to handle than many more performance oriented designs. Has an asymmetric and I presume would be easy to single hand.

The version I sailed had the fixed keel so I don't know if the centreboard version handles quite as well.
 
dancrane said:
May I auto-correct that to 'cats'? ;)
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Stupid phone!

I wonder what the righting moment curve looks like for a cat compared to a dinghy (with no sails). My gut is it is very stable on a mooring until a point, whereas perhaps a dinghy is easier to start but also more inclined to stop.
 
I thought of cats too.
Trouble is many of them have very heavy masts.
Many dinghies are prone to rolling on moorings, if the mooring pulls the bow down it can make even a heavy dinghy unstable.
A gaff or gunter rig so there is less weight aloft when on the mooring can be a big plus.

Big question is, how sheltered is the mooring?
 
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