# the perfect 20'' cruising boat?



## jbarros (Jul 30, 2002)

*the perfect 20'''' cruising boat?*

so, if one were to design the perfect boat for coastal cruising, with the sole caveat that it had to be 20'' LOA or less, what type of package would it be?

Thanks.

-- James


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## HeartofGold (Jan 21, 2004)

*the perfect 20'''' cruising boat?*

James,

I own an Ensenada 20, and my biased opinion is that it may be the best 20'' boat (light cruiser) out there. It has a flush deck cabin, which provides 3 major advantages (for its size). 
1) A tremendous cabin
2) A tremendous deck
3) A very dry cockpit.
It has a 550 lb swing keel, giving drawing less than 18 inches when up, but over 4'' when down. The mast has no spreaders and is accordingly very heavy built. She is beamy and comfortable to sail. Definately won''t win any races, but for the size, I doubt you well find a boat this size with more room above or below decks. It sleeps my family of 4 sungly, yet comfortably.

But as I said at the beginning, I have a very biased opinion.

Doug


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## Frenzy (Jun 27, 2001)

*the perfect 20'''' cruising boat?*

FLICKA 20


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## Jeff_H (Feb 26, 2000)

*the perfect 20'''' cruising boat?*

It is funny that you ask this question because it is one that I have wrestled with since I was a kid. It is a very difficult question to answer because we all have our own goals for what that small cruiser might be. Throughout my entire sailing career, I always thought that it would be neat to have a small single-hander that one could also cruise. As a kid I was in love with the Cape Cod Golden Eye. I thought it the near perfect small boat.

Over the years my ideas about what the perfect 20 foot cruiser might be have greatly changed. I have literally drawn dozens of designs for small cruisers for myself to build. My earliest ideas were all somewhat camper sailors in the mold of the Herreshoff Alerion. Over time the designs have evolved into a small double-ended dory type, to something that is akin to a truncated more modern J22 to something that is closer to a Open Class boat similar to the Mini-Transat boats. All were designed to be the perfect under 20 foot pocket cruiser.

While small cruising boats exist, these often lack the sturdy simplicity and self- sufficiency of earlier pocket cruisers. They often contain too many undersized berths and not enough real berths and storage. The efforts to get something like standing headroom results in boats with too much windage and too much weight. Also sailing ability has often been compromised for trailering ability. Boats like the Flicka try to catch the romance of these earlier boats but to me the are really caricatures of the type that fall flat on their faces when it comes to sailing ability.

The idea of a small pocket cruiser has been around for well over a hundred years but even after all of that time small cruisers still raise a number of questions that after 100 years really haven't been resolved, for example:

How small is too small to really distance cruise?
This one is just rhetorical.

Auxiliary propulsion:
Probably the smallest cruisers, the Rob Roy type double paddle canoes got by with double paddles as auxiliaries. Rob Roys crossed the English Channel and explored much of the Med. and inland Europe. Over here, in the 1870's, a fellow cruised in a paper canoe from the St. Lawrence down the rivers to the East Coast. He then went down the whole length of the East Coast before stopping at cedar key on the West Coast of Florida. In the twenties it was not all than uncommon to carry a long sweep to get past that flat spot in the wind when time mattered less.

Somehow we've gotten ourselves into thinking we need an auxiliary motor. It may actually be true that we do. Some years ago I beat up a narrow creek and sailed up to a fuel dock to buy some ice. There was a power boat at the dock ahead of me and the skipper laid into me for endangering his pride and joy recklessly by coming in with out my engine running just in case. More and more I find people (often sailors) who chew you out for tacking up a narrow channel or sailing through a tight anchorage. But beyond that, if you look at modern so-called pocket cruisers, compromises are being made to provide modern accommodations beyond the size that the boat can support. That produces boats that do not sail as well as they truly need to if they are to go everywhere by the wind. By that I am not just talking about speed or light air ability, but the ability of a boat to tack reliably and claw off a lee shore in a bit of wind, and turn in a tight enough circle to sail into and out of a dock. Beyond that powerboat wakes and crowded channels mean that sailing ability becomes doubly more important if you are not going to be motoring a lot.

Electrical systems:
We seem to expect all boats to have a fairly sophisticated electrical system. It is almost impossible to have legal running lights without one. That means charging the batteries that means photocells at the least and more likely an engine. Once a boat has batteries do we add nav. and communication equipment? Somehow it seems to be taken for granted that any cruiser will minimally have a VHF and a GPS, let alone the current trend toward radar on smaller and smaller boats.

Dinghies and going ashore:
Around the turn of the last century the British built what they called canoe yawls. These small cruisers started out around 18 feet long. The first canoe yawls were ballasted centerboarders. When you wanted to go ashore you simply beached the boat or tied up to a dock. Very quickly the canoe yawls evolved into deeper keelboats that could not be easily beached. When I was a kid you could cruise even on Long Island Sound in a boat that could be beached in almost any harbor for the night. In effect these boats were their own dinghies. Today, there are fewer places that you can beach a boat and go ashore. This would suggest that beachable boats are probably not really able to deliver the independence that would be ideal for the type. But pocket cruisers are too small to carry or tow a conventional hard dinghy and there often isn't room to conveniently inflate a dinghy.

How about ice boxes? 
By this I mean we've come to expect iceboxes as standard equipment but ice is a very inefficient way to store food. The ice and surrounding insulation takes up a lot more room than the food it's cooling. On a small boat, it is relatively easy to store enough food and water to remain independent from support for several weeks but with ice the best you can do is two or three days especially in a warm climate. Yet today we seem to take ice for granted.

Sailing performance: Modern hull shape, keel type, and sail area
When we talk about small cruising boats we seem to always look back at the successful designs of the past. Hindsight is after all easier than looking ahead. But boats of the past were products of the available materials and technology of the time (not to mention a different pace.) Many of the venerable designers of the past were striving to advance the "art" just as hard as current generation designers like Farr. Nat Herreshoff designed a very successful fin keel with bulb and a spade rudder design in the late 1800's. He abandoned fin keels because they were outlawed under the racing rules of the period. But even his "traditional designs" like the pocket cruiser "Alerion" , with its sliding gunter rig, foil shaped keel and board, and extremely light weight construction for the day was a very advanced design.

As soon as we talk about pocket cruisers we seem to look back. Obviously no one would consider a Melges 24 a candidate for a pocket cruiser, but I don't understand why we also don't look at boats like 'American Express', the Wiley designed 21' Trans Atlantic racer or the Farr 727.

It seems like there aren't many manufacturers willing to look at developing advanced pocket cruisers. When you look at what seems to sell the most it's half-baked and scary. Internal lead and iron ballast was abandoned in sailing yachts in the middle part of this century because it was inefficient and frankly dangerous. So who at the beginning of the next millennium decided that internal ballast, water internal ballast at that, is suddenly a good idea. Look at the boats that really sell in large numbers and try to find a model under 28 feet that doesn't offer water ballast (not the Volvo sixty type).

Then there is the Keel issue. I will catch some flack for this but there is no doubt that strictly from a sailing ability a properly designed small boat with modern fin with bulb and spade rudder will out sail a well designed long keel design every time. On the size boats we are talking about there is no such thing as tracking without dynamic balance and a balanced fin keel boat will hold course with a long keel boat. But there is the issue of draft. Daggerboards work well in boats this size but then again you end up with the cabin bisected by the Trunk. Swing keels work pretty well until you get into "deep serious" and the want to close on their own.

Also in this size there is very little difference in motion between a lightweight and a heavy weight boat. Small boats are small boats and will feel like a small boat no matter how light or how heavy.

Which brings us to sail area. In the past, pocket cruisers often had rigs that could carry enormous amounts of sail. Kunhardt shows an 18-foot Chesapeake lifeboat yacht (essentially a pocket cruiser of the day) with 275 s.f. of sail area in its "lowers". That is without main or jib Topsails. (That is more than carried by my prior boat, a 28 foot Laser which was a third of the weight) That is what it took to make old time pocket cruisers go, even in light air. But today we are unwilling to live with 8'-6" bow sprits on our traditional 18 footers. Yet traditional boat types argue for the type without seeming to remember that to push large wetted surface through the water takes even larger sail plans. I argue that it is far more tiring on the crew to wrestle with these large sail plans than to live with a lighter boat and smaller sail plan.

Lastly Cost:
In the early seventies, there was a large community of live aboard Hippies and ex World War 2 vets (who were collecting thirty-year pensions) in Dinner Key, Fla. They lived on an assortment of small cruising boats. You could buy a wooden whaleboat style lifeboat for $100.00 or so and convert it for $500 to a thousand to a really mediocre sailboat. The best life boat conversions sailed well and made the passage back and forth to the Bahamas with ease. You could buy one of these for $1500 or so. You could buy a nice Bahama Sloop for somewhere around $2500 to $2800. I bought my folkboat for $400 and had it pretty well ready to go cruising for a couple grand. To put this in perspective a new Ford Mustang was somewhere around $4000. A used Vanguard was about $11,000. So here we are at the end of the millenium, and I look around and boat prices are so far out there that they get beyond the point that quality boats are beyond the practical reach of most normal people. In 1985 my Laser cost the first owner $27,000 new, fully found with a trailer. Today, I understand the same boat would cost close to $100,000 to produce and it probably would not be Kevlar and Vinylester. We haven't had that much inflation

A part of the jump in new boat prices is in "raising the standard of living" by cramming features often found in fully found serious offshore cruisers into what should probably be simple fast comfortable boats. If these boats are kept simple and are designed to be what they are, small boats, with most of the compromises that a small cruiser entails, then perhaps they would also be affordable.

Respectfully 
Jeff


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## HeartofGold (Jan 21, 2004)

*the perfect 20'''' cruising boat?*

Jeff,

That was quite a response, even by your standards. Terrific ideas you presented. I am currently in the process of restoring my Ensenada 20, and though I am almost finished with the exterior, I have removed almost all of the interior which I will be rebuilding this fall. The ideas you presented are wonderful, and I will certainly take all of that into account as I plan my new interior. Thanks for the well thought out information.

Doug


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## jbarros (Jul 30, 2002)

*the perfect 20'''' cruising boat?*

wow. thanks.

I thought a swing keel could be locked down? am I incorrect here?

Thanks.

-- James


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## Jeff_H (Feb 26, 2000)

*the perfect 20'''' cruising boat?*

Some swing keels can be locked down but most count on gravity to stay down.

Jeff


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## catamount (Sep 8, 2002)

*the perfect 20'''' cruising boat?*

But gravity only works to keep the swing keel down as long as the boat is right side up!

Should you take a knock down with the keel not locked down, not only could you have a 400 or more pound keel swinging back up into your boat, taking out your trunk, but you also loose all of your righting moment!

The San Juan 21 Class Association requires racers to keep their swing keel locked down when racing for safety (but also presumably to make sure no one sneaks their keel up on the downwind legs).

Some San Juan 21 sailors have apparently experimented with various types of shear pins for the locking bolt, such as wooden dowels, so that if they hit a rock the pin will break and the keel will kick up out of harms way.

Regards,

Tim


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## Jeff_H (Feb 26, 2000)

*the perfect 20'''' cruising boat?*

You are right about gravity, of course. I experienced the problem with a swing keel that could not be locked down when sailing a Venture out in the Atlantic and the boat was rolled so fast and so far that the board came up and damaged the trunk. Only a quick mainsail release saved our fannies. When I raced on San Juan 21''s we would retract the keel on a run. That was pretty much standard fair in the 1970''s.

Jeff


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## catamount (Sep 8, 2002)

*the perfect 20'''' cruising boat?*

"When I raced on San Juan 21''s we would retract the keel on a run. That was pretty much standard fair in the 1970''s."

I don''t race my SJ21, but I''m pretty sure that that wouldn''t be allowed now.

Regards,

Tim


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## TSOJOURNER (Dec 16, 1999)

*the perfect 20'''' cruising boat?*

James, was your question theoretical, or are you thinking of ways to maximize Josie? If so, this thread could provide more practical suggestions, since its design and capabilities are already givens.


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## msl (Jul 4, 2001)

*the perfect 20'''' cruising boat?*

James, there may be several answers to your design question. One might be the Sharpie. 
There is a truly wonderful book, "The Commodore''s Story" by Ralph Munroe, of Key Biscayne, Florida.
There are accounts of some amazing voyages up and down the Atlantic coast as well as gunkholing adventures in that particular hull form.
If you happen to visit Miami, Florida, his home and workshop are maintained as a state historic site (known as "The Barnacle"). 
One of his innovations was a round bilged version of a New Haven Sharpie design - known as the "Presto". It is reputed to be very capable for shoal draft cruising, yet very seaworthy in open water.
Any way, James, find the book at a library. The text and pictures are very rewarding to read. I think the Sharpie designs are but one of many possible answers to the question.

I once rented a dhow (and skipper) on a very breezy day on the Nile river... steel hull, hand sewn cotton sails, a "wild" gaff design if ever there was one. It was very efficient maneuvering around obstacles (other craft, shoreline and docking. This dhow had no engine, either. There are stories of the "ancients" sailing dhows across oceans.

There are, I think, many designs which answer your question. New discoveries are always rewarding.
Regards,
Mark L.


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## jbarros (Jul 30, 2002)

*the perfect 20'''' cruising boat?*

I appologize for my ignorance, but I thought that one of the defining factors of a sharpie was the flat bottom. What exactly is a round bilge sharpie?

On a side note, this was in part to get ideas for josie, but also to come up with more food for thought as I continue to talk myself into building the perfect boat (for me) at some point in the future. 

Thanks agian everyone.

-- James


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## msl (Jul 4, 2001)

*the perfect 20'''' cruising boat?*

James, Munroe designed and built many boats. The "Presto" was just a variation of the basic sharpie design. Rounded bilges, yet still shoal draft.
"Google" Ralph M. Munroe, or Presto or Egret and you''ll see.


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## msl (Jul 4, 2001)

*the perfect 20'''' cruising boat?*

James... where we live and sail there are long Winters to endure. Reading keeps us focused, informed and entertained.
Another interesting story about an offshore adventure in an 18 foot DRASCOMBE LUGGER is the book, "A Single Wave" by Webb Chiles.
It just amazed me what this sailor put(s) himself through...and what the Drascombe Lugger could (and later, couldn''t)handle.
Check it out.
Mark L.


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