Pacific Transport

How to sail without being able to afford it

.A. famous yachtsman once said of boating; “If you have to ask how much, forget it, you can’t afford it!” And to a great degree this is still true. Especially if you are thinking of world-girdling in the very latest boat from the board of a top designer.

But if you hold your taste down to the basics and make do without radar and other electronic geegaws, self-steers with a wind-vane instead of auto-pilot, cook with kerosene or meths instead of bottled gas, eat canned foods instead of frozen etc, you can go cruising without having the backside of your pants in continual need of repair.

When the cruising bug bites it does so without favour; rich or poor the attack has the same effect. . .get a boat and go! Once the disease has been contracted, it can only be controlled, not cured. Witness the office worker with the far-away look on the Friday before a long weekend, or the truck driver with his head out the window to feel the wind in his face.

Satisfaction has a lot to do with the con trol of the cruising bug. Little satisfac tions, like seeing your mail arrive ad dressed to “The Sloop Mary-Jane” at whatever port you happen to be in, or comparing notes with a fellow-cruiser and finding that you’ve made a passage slightly faster than his bigger boat, or perhaps fin ding that despite all her previous protestations your wife really enjoys a cruising holiday after all.

The cruising bug bitee will read many books on the subject and this will alleviate the symptoms on long, boatless weekends books like Eric Hiscock’s Cruising Un der Sail or Voyaging Under Sail, both of which are considered the cruising man’s Bible. Cruising the Coral Coast by Alan Lucas is a must for anyone visiting Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. He may try one of the excellent boating books published by International Marine Publishing. Or, he may read some of PlM’s own publications which present a veritable pot pouri of every island he could visit

You will often read of a European’s dream of visiting the South Seas. Well, the would-be cruiser of the South Pacific is that far ahead of his European counterpart, especially if he’s low in cash. He doesn’t have to outfit a larger boat capable of hops of around s,ooo*miles or so. He can stick to the many islands of Fiji or Tonga, the indented coasts of Papua New Guinea, the many bays and fjords of New Zealand or Australia’s Great Barrier Reef or the many other beauty spots of the Pacific, and have a cruising ground without equal all within a few hundred miles of home.

It’s hard to reason patience with a person bitten. He’ll want to be away! And if he’? adventurous and like most, without money, he could try dingy cruising. Hopping from bay to bay, beach to beach and camping at night. The full length of the Great Barrier Reef was covered by one enterprising young man in this way, and one Englishman who must have been

ready foe,committal, actually took a dingy

from England to Iceland. Rather like taking a motor-scooter up Mt. Everest!

T L a „ • . , . , h J h n e „ re ,' S TaT V™ * ad °" chea P A"d cheapness does not ™" “ k J“ trength ° r R .. . .- U . , .ty Donald

hj '/. " ft Ullt

.. . r ?^ d as Allantic and, as PIM 3 ‘ e „ d , a h , c " upk r of monlhs a B°- ls now CrUlS,n « the Pac,f,c Eric the Red was built from scrounged scraps of timber, old floor boards etc and his sails are of the Chinese lug (junk) type, made from unbleached calico and bat tened w >th bamboo. The Chinese lug requires no rigging and this is a big saving, Ridler used porcelain electrical insulators ‘" stead of blocks for tjie complicated sheeting system another big saving, The sails tnemseives do not require shape cut into them and hence can be

made at home with a reasonable sewing machine and a few pricked fingers. This system also allows the sails to be shor tened in a matter of seconds, a big safety factor.

Eric the Red is modeled on a Cape Anne Dory, ope of the easiest and cheapest craft to build and yet one of the most seaworthy for any money anywhere.

The dory has a flat bottom and flat flairing sides, its greatest feature being that the more it is immersed, (loaded) the more buoyant it becomes. Grand Banks fishermen sit in open versions of this boat fishing with handlines in some of the roughest waters in the world. The design evolved so that they could be stacked one inside the other aboard the mother ship.

Plans for these craft can be had for as little as SUSIO in both power and sail (or both) from Capt Jim Orrell, Texas Dorys, P.O. Box 720, Galveston, Texas, USA, 77550.

One cruising type neglected over the years, and of special interest to the man who doesn’t care for sail with all their

reliance on wind and tide, is the low

powered displacement motor launch.

Using the modejn lightweight diesel, they can make passages that are economical, boast utter reliability and can often arrive faster than sailing vessels twice as large.

The much-maligned multi-hull makes an excellent cruising craft well-suited to amateur construction. The old days of floating blocks of flats are gone, and in their place are fast, stable craft that are not so prone to capsize as their predecessors. The old “give a dog a bad name” syndrome is slowly fading and skippers are facing up to the fact that their craft are capsizable and require a little more attention. The biggest asset of the multi is its ability to stay afloat even when holed or badly damaged and its shallow draught makes it ideal for cruising coral waters.

The best-known designers for trimarans are American Jim Brown or Australian Lock Crowther while perhaps the best catamarans for the amateur are by James Wharram, whose so called Polynesian cats have no superstructure between the hulls, only slatted deck so that large waves have nothing to grip. The hulls themselves are flexibly connected to allow the craft to ride the swells rather than fight them.

Wharram designs sizes from 16 to 55ft and plans are available from him at the Longhouse, Milford Docks, Milford Haven, Pembs., South Wales, UK.

Perhaps your cruising must be done from a base ashore; then maybe one of the burgeoning class of trailer-sailers is for you. They can be towed behind your car to your favourite cruising ground, and are available in sizes from 16ft up. New Zealander Richard Hartley started the boom with his famous TSI6 for which plans can be had at reasonable cost. Other trailer-sailers tend to be production models in fibreglass.

If you feel a larger boat could be the answer and you can stand a wait, you could try ferro-cement. Many beautiful yachts have been built in this medium.

While certainly a cheap way to a boat it is time consuming and great care must be taken to avoid expensive mistakes.

You may want fibreglass and yet still wish to build your own. If so, perhaps Bruce Roberts of Gumdale in Queensland can help. He’ll not only supply superb designs for cruising boats but also supply material, and if necessary a place to build

your dream-ship.

A little cash stashed away, and a yen for a ready-made little ship, could be that the H2B featured in this issue is for you.

But it all comes down to the same old disease. . .you’re bitten and want to go places in your own boat... places the tourists read about but never get to. . .to be skipper of your own ship.