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

Thursday 30 July 2015

Dinghy cruising; sleeping on a dinghy

living on a small boat should be straight forward. everything should have its place, as demonstrated by Joel on board his navigator Ellie.
http://navigatorjoel.blogspot.co.uk/

Yet despite my best efforts I never seem to get it quite right!

I sleep on the port side, head to stern, legs down alongside the centrecase. My sleeping platform on the port side is supported by inflated drybags and surprisingly, it works! The down sleeping bag is inside a gortex bivvy bag along with some pillows.

I cook on the starboard side thwart. So the cooking crate is left on that side when we are anchored or moored.  Food is on the thwart towards the stern.

At night, along the stern thwart goes my PDF, marine radio, large lantern torch, mobile phone and glasses; a drink and some snacks. In a dry bag also located here are spare fleeces and my foulies. Everything else is packed away for the night in dry bags which lie along the hull sides in the front cockpit well.  Cooking kit is always packed away leaving the starboard side of the boat for moving along if I need to get to anchor well. Entry/exit into the cockpit tent is via the bow, starboard side.

Having now seen how Joel does it, I can lots of areas where I can make adjustments so that, hopefully, in the future, Arwen will look tidier and less cluttered! 

4 comments:

Alden Smith said...

By sleeping platform I presume you mean some boards or a large piece of plywood to span what looks like some uncomfortable frames to negotiate?

steve said...

Hi Alden
It is a single ply board strengthened underneath with some half inch x three inch planks. The board is exactly half the width of the aft cockpit and runs its length. There is a two inch overlap on the three sides. The board is 5mm ply
Hope that describes it sufficiently. It sits across the rear thwart when not in use.
Steve

Joel Bergen said...

Trust me Steve, Ellie is the only thing in my life that I have somewhat organized. Seriously, over half of my gear fits into my drylocker. If you're not using yours, I would give serious consideration to installing a big hatch (as big as possible) to get access. It's huge in there and it makes all the difference.

steve said...

yep! I sense a winter project coming on because you are right. It's a real pain having a lack of foresight!! if only I'd an engineers mind like Dad's Id have spotted the flaw on the plans but hey ho there we go. I love your blog Joel - always an utter source of joy and inspiration to read

steve