Arwen's meanderings

Hi everyone and welcome to my dinghy cruising blog about my John Welsford designed 'navigator' named Arwen. Built over three years, Arwen was launched in August 2007. She is a standing lug yawl 14' 6" in length. This blog records our dinghy cruising voyages together around the coastal waters of SW England.
Arwen has an associated YouTube channel so visit www.YouTube.com/c/plymouthwelshboy to find our most recent cruises and click subscribe.
On this blog you will find posts about dinghy cruising locations, accounts of our voyages, maintenance tips and 'How to's' ranging from rigging standing lug sails and building galley boxes to using 'anchor buddies' and creating 'pilotage notes'. I hope you find something that inspires you to get out on the water in your boat. Drop us a comment and happy sailing.
Steve and Arwen

Tuesday, 21 January 2014

Dinghy cruising: the perfect cruising dinghy?


The DCA forum has been spending quite a bit of time discussing ‘performance’ in a cruising dinghy.  What are the ultimate criteria for choosing a good cruising dinghy? This wasn’t a conversation about safety and how to ensure it in a dinghy – more about cruising performance and associated issues.

Not in any particular order, but forum members quoted the following:

·         Comfortable boat to reduce tiredness and improve decision making of skipper

·         Reduce dousing by dollops of water over the bow

·         Reasonable windward ability but not super critical

·         Ditto for speed

·         Habitability under way and at anchor

·         Ability to adapt to different sea and wind states

·         Reasonable manoeuvrability on land and sea

·         A dodger to reduce wind exposure

·         Minimising the times you need to go out onto the foredeck – so all sail controls leading aft; roller reefing and furling of jib

·         Perhaps having some rope system that allows anchoring and its retrieval from midway down the cockpit

·         Appropriate inventory for the cruising grounds and conditions covered

·         Easy availability of spares

·         Easy to repair

·         Easy towing

·         Ease of launching and retrieval of boat

·         Good ability of boat to run ashore to escape worsening conditions

·         Does purchase price/cost factor into this list?

·         Insurance costs – a known type/class of dinghy may well incur cheaper insurance quotes

·         The cost of fuel for the towing vehicle

·         Adequate floatation

I thought it was a very interesting conversation thread and as always reflected the deep knowledge and experience of DCA members. If you are a dinghy sailor thinking of dinghy cruising joining the Dinghy Cruising Association would, in my humble opinion, be a worthwhile move.  Intelligent, thought provoking debate about sailing and dinghies.
As a ‘secret lurker’ on the forum I have learned loads.
As for Arwen. Well she seems to do well on the small craft safety test; she passed the RNLI free safety inspection. I’m guessing that her performance is merely limited by the inexperience of her skipper!!
Steve

1 comment:

Bursledon Blogger said...

Bit odd no one mentions ballast - I've been thinking about a ballast keel like the Lazer Stratos keel version on a wayfarer for a while would be a relatively easy conversion - briefly emailed Mr W about same on his AWOL which is a boat I really like alas no time for building at present