the smallest practical sailboat

parsifal said:
A couple of years ago we met up with a fleet of Corsaires in Camaret.

http://www.allboatsavenue.com/j-j-herbulot-le-corsaire-un-deriveur-legendaire

All in immaculate condition and their owners seemed to be having a lot more fun in them than some of the po-faced English there, many of whom seemed to be mainly pre-occupied with ensuring that no-one rafted up on them. :D
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There was a small fleet of 3 or 4 Corsaires (or something very similar) I met at Dale (Milford Haven) a couple of years ago .They were all skippered and crewed by youngsters ,none of them looked older than 20 they had sailed up from Brittany and were on their way to the West of Scotland for their summer cruise.They didnt seem to think they were doing anything exceptional.
 
Friends used to cruise with us cross channel in a Seawych 19' home finished, we were in what was a big boat then a Twister. It did look a little cramped. Once, due to a miscalculation it went through the barflour tidal race/overfalls. Tough little boat.
http://www.seawych.org/
 
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A few years ago the Commodore of my club used to sail singlehanded a Charles Currey design, a 16ft Fairey Falcon.
The boat had been a sailing school boat for dinghy tuition but I always thought how nice it would have been as a cruising yacht. Following fairey's later designs she was a diagonally planked ,veneered, moulded hull with quite high freeboard which gave pupils some reassurance I guess. A small cabin if fitted would have looked just right ,and made a lovely little cruiser; wonder if anybody ever did it? Don't remember what PY it was then but fully crewed would give most Wayfarers a run for their money, without spinnaker too.!

ianat182
 
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But still John Ridings Sea Egg was lost in the Tasman Sea (Just read Roger D. Taylors excellent "The Voyages of a Simple Sailor" where he mentions that).
 
Sailing around Britain in a 19 footer - Mirror Offshore

I spent a lot of time thinking about a boat for the slowest UK circumnavigation in history

Caprice, Westerly 22, considered all the ones I could buy for under £3,000l

in the end I chose "the slug" - it cost me £2,200 so that left me £800 to spend on the first part of the journey

Probably the ugliest production yacht ever made

not record breaker

but it does have a separate heads, an inboard engine, plenty of storage space, sits on the mud - full standing headroom in the only place you need it - which is at the galley (hatch open). I can drop the mast single handed for going under bridges.

So far "The Slug" has not frightened me.

Mirror Offshore - a yacht for the working man

Dylan

PS if I had the money it would have been a Centaur
 
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I think the last time I went to a Boat Show the Mirror Offshore was a new Yacht..:D:D Nothing wrong with it.

Tim
 
I used to go to Boat Shows

Alfie168 said:
I think the last time I went to a Boat Show the Mirror Offshore was a new Yacht..:D:D Nothing wrong with it.

Tim
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But then I realised that I would never be able to afford any of the boats there - not even the dinghies that seem to cost £5,000 for 14 foot of contoured washing up bowl, aluminium toothpicks and crackling seathrough plastic bag sails.

Bah humbug!

Dylan
 
ianat182 said:
A few years ago the Commodore of my club used to sail singlehanded a Charles Currey design, a 16ft Fairey Falcon.
The boat had been a sailing school boat for dinghy tuition but I always thought how nice it would have been as a cruising yacht. Following fairey's later designs she was a diagonally planked ,veneered, moulded hull with quite high freeboard which gave pupils some reassurance I guess. A small cabin if fitted would have looked just right ,and made a lovely little cruiser; wonder if anybody ever did it? Don't remember what PY it was then but fully crewed would give most Wayfarers a run for their money, without spinnaker too.!

ianat182
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Charles Stock used to write lovely articles in YM about sailing on his 16' Shoal Waters - I think her hull might have started off as a Fairey Falcon?
More about him and Shoal Waters here at http://shoal-waters.moonfruit.com/#/about-shoal-waters/4513741867
 
Ruffian and Albin Vega

The Ruffian at 23' is a great boat. I sailed on one of these when I was 12 or 13. Four of us cruised around the Firth of Clyde on one from the Gareloch to Campbelltown and back via East Loch Tarbert and Kyles of Bute. The Albin Vega is another excellent small yacht that is very seaworthy.

Around this length is the smallest I would want to cruise in based on comfort level only. I have cruised a Wayfarer dinghy on the Firth of Clyde, extended day cruises only. They are fantastic dinghies and certainly proved to me that small was seaworthy.

I remember a discussion about wave length and period where it was stated that around 23' and the motion became quite awkward for steering efficiently, it could have been a bar room discussion as opposed to any basis in fact.

Some Ruffians

http://www.ruffians.ie/
http://yachts.apolloduck.com/boats.phtml?id=820
 
Actually, I rather like those boats.

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graham;2506748 Absolutely right. I wonder also how many boats have hit things because the "skipper" was peering into a chart plotter constantly instead of looking at the real world.[/QUOTE said:
I did to my cost. Last year. I was running downwind in my Folkboat trying to keep the wind on the starboard quarter. I had just changed course after rounding the Kullen and was heading South to Copenhagen.

I used my handheld GPS for a course to steer. I was alone and very busy on the tiller trying to avoid a gybe of the full mainsail. En-route waypoints was to Hoganas Harbour.

I had entered three waypoints the year before, for the landfall buoy, the channel, and the breakwater entrance. They were named Hoganas 1, Hoganas 2, and Hoganas 3.

I followed the course for Hoganas 1 thinking that it was the landfall buoy. Wrong as it turned out. I had forgotton that I had entered these waypoints while I was moored INSIDE the harbour to help me get out in poor visability the year before.

I was aiming for the breakwater. While my attention was divided between the mainsail and the GPS I steered a course right over the reef to the north of the breakwater. This would have been OK if my draft was less than six inches.

Ruined the whole summer.
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