Category: Sailing cruisers

Sailing yachts used for cruising, or as cruiser-racers.

Betty Alan goes cruising

Scapa Floe 2

Ed Maggs is running a characterful weblog about his adventures sailing the 50ft mahogany-hulled 1999 topsail ketch Betty Alan.

Ed knows his sailing literature, and claims that on his boat vital navigation issues such as working out where to go are decided winter solstice by throwing dice at the winter solstice while under the influence of the sacred herbs, which he claims is in line with by principles laid down by Hiscock, Moitessier, Worth and Tilman – and that is what took Betty Alan to Orkney this year.

The photo above from Scapa Flow comes from a sort-of, kind-of celebration of the scuttling of the German fleet involving packing a cardboard model battleship with fireworks. Read about it here.

Will Stirling 9ft dinghy built in Galicia, North-West Spain

Luis phone pictures august 2013 193

Martin Scannall has built this smart example of Will Stirling’s 9ft dinghy. Here’s what he has to say about it:

‘What a joy the dinghy is. It rows like a dream, straight as an arrow and nearly as fast, is stable, can carry four adults with ease and tows well too. I have sent you a shot of her on a local beach, where rather than drive I rowed half a mile or so to a party, just for the pleasure of the thing.’

You can’t say that for many 9ft dinghies. For more information about the Stirling & Son 9ft dinghy plans, click here.

Martin has also been towing the dinghy behind his sailing cruiser Sauntress (I hope this is the correct boat – the Classic Boat link that comes up in Googleseems to be infected by something nasty at the moment so please be careful), and so keeps two long warps on the quarters of his boat.

‘The warps slipped over when I was not looking. As a result I had an unintended lesson in the effectiveness of towing warps in a following sea, which was remarkable.

‘They virtually stopped the yacht so we had to heave to to retrieve the warp, which turned out to be no easy matter. Lesson learned.’

It’s worth knowing for the rest of us, I’d guess.

I gather Sauntress is now 100 years old – and the photo below shows her with a new square sail.

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Short film: Where Broadland meets the Sea

Where Broadland meets the Sea

Here’s a present from the wonderful Broadland Memories website – this morning they tweeted this fabulous little 15-minute film about Oulton Water and Lowestoft in the late 1950s.

I must say I particularly like the terrifying water-borne dodgems powered by electricity brought down from chicken wire above… though I think we can see why they didn’t last into the modern age!