Solo dinghy converted for camp, row, sail, expeditions

[Greenheart]

The bloke can choose whatever boat he wants to for his cruiser. I just think he is a masochist. Far easier ways to enjoy a bit of cruising.

Quite so. But in comparative terms...windsurfer, loony...Laser...not much better...Solo with modified rig? Best of the three, I'd think.

The Pacific has been crossed by a chap in a Finn.

Nothing wrong with that...nice little cruising boat. Plenty of stowage. I'm sure Cap'n Bligh would've offered several bits of raw seagull for a 114sq ft sail on an unstayed mast.

Always liked the Finn's traditional proportions. Regrettably I don't possess the traditionally mesomorphic human proportions suited to sailing the boat, otherwise it'd be on my list.

I wonder if you've seen the chap from Itchenor who's fitted his Mirror Curlew with stowage boxes, rudder steps and manual & electric bilge-pumps? I wish he'd join the forum:

 

[Iain C]

Good grief chaps, Solos aren't light or tippy! I can see that they are a bit small for a cruiser but surely it's better to have something you can sail in all weathers, plus drag up a beach if required. Pack a small tent in your gear and it's job done.

The jib is going to make naff all difference to the balance...it's tiny, and there are plenty of classes out there that have an optional jib with no provision for moving COE/CLR. The Pico doesn't even have any shrouds and that works.

I'm assuming the blue roller sail is some kind of downwind sail...it's not going to be much use upwind. And I can assure you, putting up big blue downwind sails on bowsprits is not going to totally ruin the balance...my 49er below is totally balanced no matter what the sailplan...and let's be honest, I don't think the solo sailor in question is that bothered about performance and balance!

WRT lee helm... it's no big issue. I used to race 12' skiffs...twin wire, 12' waterline, 12' fixed bowsprit, 60 sqm kite on a 45kg hull. Of course you'd get a lot of lee helm, so you'd simply sail them downwind with the right amount of leeward heel to counteract the lee helm, and you'd have a neutral tiller. Simples.

 

[Greenheart]

Good grief chaps, Solos aren't light or tippy! I can see that they are a bit small for a cruiser but surely it's better to have something you can sail in all weathers, plus drag up a beach if required. Pack a small tent in your gear and it's job done.

Wonderful picture, Iain. At that rate, you could cruise between hotels...Cowes today, Dartmouth tomorrow, Penzance the next.

I'm often looking at ballasted centreboard cruisers not much longer than the 17'6" Osprey...I note they're all much beamier, usually at least 7ft. Certainly it'd be nice to have a GRP roof for cruising, but the headroom below must only be bearable for short periods unless one is paid to endure it. Likewise, a ballast keel would be reassuring in boisterous weather...

...but no-one pulls a 3/4 tonne mini-cruiser up a beach, however rough the night ahead looks like being. So I reckon dinghy-cruising has its place, not so inferior to basic yachting.

 

[MCL]

I wonder if you've seen the chap from Itchenor who's fitted his Mirror Curlew with stowage boxes, rudder steps and manual & electric bilge-pumps?

I love watching the adventures of Curlew, it is the sort of sailing I aspire to. Although I often only get my little boat out on local rivers such as the Nene:

 

[Greenheart]

Nice vid, MCL. There's much to be said for the bucolic beauty of our inland waterways. What's your boat? Looks very handy.

And what's that music? Pretty sure I heard it in Heat, at a moment when neither Pacino nor De Niro were killing anyone.

 

[Lakesailor]

Good grief chaps, Solos aren't light or tippy! I can see that they are a bit small for a cruiser but surely it's better to have something you can sail in all weathers, plus drag up a beach if required. Pack a small tent in your gear and it's job done.

Good luck with cruising your skiff!

My concept of a boat that it keeps your arse out of the water.

 

[Iain C]

I'm not suggesting that for a moment...it would make a hopeless cruiser! I'm just saying that if you suddenly stick a load of additional sail out the front of the boat, the balance isn't necessarily compromised.

 

[MCL]

Nice vid, MCL. There's much to be said for the bucolic beauty of our inland waterways. What's your boat? Looks very handy.
And what's that music?

Thanks fot your comments, its a Voyager, it has ballasted bilge keels and is under canvassed so its slow but steady! lol.
It replaced my Wanderer dinghy which was like a 18 foot skiff in comparison to the Voyager, although I was happy with the trade off when I gained a cabin!
If you were interested I blog about my small boating adventures here: http://mark-sailing.blogspot.co.uk/

The music is An Ending (Ascent) by Brian Eno.

 

[Seajet]

To be honest Andy, now that I have the Osprey, I can't imagine wanting anything smaller, like the Contender. As so often, the bigger the boat, the less awkward her combination of uses feels. I reckon the Osprey's 8'6" long, 24" deep cockpit will help make her a comfortable cruiser under reefed sail; but under full rig, she'll still sail rewardingly.

Smaller boats are fine in particular areas - but if they're designed for stowage/comfort or a capacious or protective cockpit, most likely they won't perform. I fancy the little Europe dinghy for drip-dry sailing on breezy days when the Osp will be an awful handful...but it wouldn't suit longer distances, and for me, nor would a pure cruiser like a Cornish Cormorant.

I do still hanker after the 19'10" Flying Dutchman though. I even found an article about singlehanding them! So the madness goes on (will be curtailed by the silly prices though ).

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Dan,

don't get too worried about the osprey being ' a hell of a handful ', I always found mine behaved like the elegant lady she is, fast when required but beatifully mannered !

Once we took a couple of girlfriends for a picnic, I overcooked it and capsized showing off but thought I'd recovered the situation by staying dry, nipping over the high side in my wetsuit and gathering a can of beer as it floated past, then said girlie looked up at me on the centreboard and said " You look just like a pixie ! "

So my evil designs didn't get far that day.

I found the Int 14 - £10,500 just for the hull in those days - painful to sail ( knee pads useful and gloves manadtory due to the nasty thin sheets ) and handled like a tea trolley with a rocket strapped to its' arse, I often wondered what the point was compared to the only slightly slower much better handling £700 Osprey.

My chum Vern of these forums has an Osprey almost identical to yours, he has never sailed any dinghy but fell for her looks and her being named after a famously graceful good looking trapeze artist, Elvira Madigan.

 

[Greenheart]

I blog about my small boating adventures here: http://mark-sailing.blogspot.co.uk/

I'll take a look, thanks. Strange thing, Brian Eno did write a piece that was used in the film Heat, but it wasn't the same piece, or even similar to the one in your vid.

Dan, don't get too worried about the Osprey being 'a hell of a handful', I always found mine behaved like the elegant lady she is, fast when required but beatifully mannered !

I don't doubt that, Andy...but I'll be taking liberties with the lady, and I anticipate getting slapped!

I reckon I should think of her as two different boats - in up to ten knots of breeze, I'll relax and enjoy the controllable speed, even singlehanded - her unexpected stability this year showed me I can cope easily then. In over ten knots, I'll think in survival terms - taking care not to risk anything which may precipitate capsize, and forgetting treatment of her as a gentle cruiser. I s'pose that makes sense whatever form one's use of a dinghy takes, but especially if her performance (and demands) go up a couple of gears at force 3+.

Maybe that's why the Wayfarer is so loyally adored by owners - because as things are getting on the volatile side of exciting in planing classes, the Wayfarer just ploughs on in the same dependably heavy fashion. I guess any design can be a cruiser in light winds on a summer day...it's when things start breezing-up that faster boats drop their docile pretence.

Note to self: fit elasticated netting inside dry stowage areas.

 

[Seajet]

Dan,

well I'll just have to admit I've never fancied Wayfarers; it may be heresy but I've seen their films and read their books, and I reckon F & M Dye spent a lot of the time on the edge in a boat unprepared for serious seas and capsize - the same struck me about that Mirror.

My little motto says ' prepare for the very worst you can imagine then you can relax knowing you've done your best '

Andy

 

[Searush]

I wonder if Dylan is reading these responses to his thread? Ron Pattenden wrote "Land on My Right", about the experience. He must've just kept turning right.

But look at the Laser's cockpit. It's like a baby-bath. Anything carried on board for the trip must either have been strapped down in zip-lock bags, or lost, or drenched.

Technically, it might be possible to cruise on a windsurfer, but unless the journey is undertaken only for publicity, it surely couldn't be anybody's choice to do so?

If the watertight hatchway to my under-foredeck space was any bigger, I reckon the space would count as a cabin. Not a lot of headroom, but it's handy for dry stuff.

Plus - did the fellow sleep on the Laser? Respect to his nerve if he did - but that's a level of craziness I wouldn't even want to be able to claim in retrospect. However lowly dinghy cruising may be regarded as, I reckon it can be fun, along similar lines to yachting, not just a comfortless stunt.

There is a book out there from a guy that windsurfed around Britain (including the N of mainland Scotland) but he had a support boat, picked his weather somewhat & stopped & started legs on GPS co-ordinates. That is he would pack up one evening, log his position & then go back to that spot on the support boat to restart the journey from in the water.

 

[Greenheart]

There is a book out there from a guy that windsurfed around Britain... ...he would pack up one evening, log his position...go back to that spot to restart the journey from in the water.

Hmm. An impressive accomplishment perhaps...but nothing whatever to do with why I - and other dinghy sailors who don't race - work towards the ultimate rewarding little cruiser.

It will probably embarrass me, but also give me a momentary glow of daft pride if I can say (next summer) that I've taken what many regard as a wholly inappropriate choice of unballasted boat, some distance across the sea, complete with everything aboard her that I need to sustain a pleasant, leisurely stay at the other end.

Swallows and Amazons it may be, but I reckon it's also that spirit of which most of us here spend all our boating hours (and £££s) in pursuit, even if it's at the budget end.

 

[Searush]

Hmm. An impressive accomplishment perhaps...but nothing whatever to do with why I - and other dinghy sailors who don't race - work towards the ultimate rewarding little cruiser.

It will probably embarrass me, but also give me a momentary glow of daft pride if I can say (next summer) that I've taken what many regard as a wholly inappropriate choice of unballasted boat, some distance across the sea, complete with everything aboard her that I need to sustain a pleasant, leisurely stay at the other end.

Swallows and Amazons it may be, but I reckon it's also that spirit with which most of us here spend all our boating hours (and £££s) in pursuit of, even if it's at the budget end.

I agree it has little to do with dinghy cruising, just trying to point out "it has been done". Nowt wrong with dinghy cruising, done some myself, but generally I prefer to be back home in bed by nightfall. No problems with you going long duration/ distance cruising tho, enjoy yourself.

 

[Greenheart]

Thankee Cap'n. Ah, nightfall...makes me want to look up Origo stuff on ebay. I'd quite like an oil-lamp glowing, swinging in the rigging when I drop anchor too. I can just see it...the lapping sea, the stars above, the scent of paraffin...the dislodged shackle...the boom-tent inferno...hmm, I might pull her up on the beach instead and head for a beer & B&B...

 

[Seajet]

Thankee Cap'n. Ah, nightfall...makes me want to look up Origo stuff on ebay. I'd quite like an oil-lamp glowing, swinging in the rigging when I drop anchor too. I can just see it...the lapping sea, the stars above, the scent of paraffin...the dislodged shackle...the boom-tent inferno...hmm, I might pull her up on the beach instead and head for a beer & B&B...

Dan,

some of us have cooked soup underway in a Fireball in winter using a Gaz stove - it would have been worth a waterproof camera just for the looks on the cruisers' faces ( Force 1-2 ) and there'd have been a mushroom cloud if an elf n safety bod was passing, don't think I'd try it again unless really desperate for a mug of Campbells.

 

[Greenheart]

Hmm, making martinis was about as bold as we got. But that was in a Topper, mid-Solent. It's remarkable how efficiently a few dropped olives can bung-up a self-bailer.

I'll be a lot more adventurous in a bigger boat, with anchor & line. In every sense.

 

[dylanwinter]

I wonder if Dylan is reading these responses to his thread? Ron Pattenden wrote "Land on My Right", about the experience. He must've just kept turning right.

certainly am

just a bit frightened of upsetting people

it is the time of year when a few blokes get a bit grumpy and start posting stuff they would never say to anyone's face

 

[MCL]

it is the time of year when a few blokes get a bit grumpy and start posting stuff they would never say to anyone's face

Im interested in hearing your opinion! Particularity in relation to small boat (don't ask me to define that) or dinghy (umm, or that) cruising.

 

[MCL]

Hmm, making martinis was about as bold as we got. But that was in a Topper, mid-Solent. It's remarkable how efficiently a few dropped olives can bung-up a self-bailer.

I cooked some bacon on a mirror dinghy once. Of course I just sat the meths stove directly on the side deck which left a nice scorch mark.. does it add character to the boat?