# anyone know of any small boats cruising around



## TSOJOURNER (Dec 16, 1999)

What is the smallest known sailboat to be out cruising at this time? Does anyone know of any trailer sailers or of any open boats? Where are they cruising? Are these folks having any difficulties? Just curious.


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## sailingdog (Mar 19, 2006)

Define cruising... there are a lot of small boats, <20', that are out gunkholing, and even island hopping. I know of several people who are out in the Caribbean, who left via Florida, and are in boats less than 25' LOA. 

There are also quite a few boats <30' that are making ocean passages.

Webb Chiles did make it most of the way around the world in an open 18' Drascombe Lugger. Actually, it was two different Drascombe Luggers, since one was confiscated in Egypt IIRC, and he got a replacement from the company that makes them so he could continue. Stopped in the Canaries IIRC.


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## Faster (Sep 13, 2005)

A quick google yielded this link:

Small boat against the ocean. Cruise accounts. Download this article.

A home-built 14 footer across the Atlantic and other similar stories... but just because someone's done it doesn't make it a great idea.....


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## sailingdog (Mar 19, 2006)

Here's a *link* I found on a small boat cruising *website*. It is about a japanese man's circumnavigation in a 23' boat. BTW, I'd highly recommend the website, since it is dedicated to sailing far distances in smaller boats, and believes that you don't need a 40'+ boat to cruise safely.


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## sailingfool (Apr 17, 2000)

Courtesy of the other website there is this kid Jonny Moore Sailing and this kid Sail The Dream - Support Jack Daly to sail around the UK


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## TSOJOURNER (Dec 16, 1999)

Faster said:


> A home-built 14 footer across the Atlantic and other similar stories... but just because someone's done it doesn't make it a great idea.....


Yep. I think it is kind of cool that someone took a boat like mine to the Bahamas. I got in touch with the guy and he says it's so, but absolutely doesn't recommend it. Not because he had a rough time but because now he knows he was lucky not to.

I got into a squabble on another forum trying to differentiate between sailboats and survival capsules with some limited wind navigation capabilities. I am really not too interested in the latter.

One interesting comment I saw (at the sailfar.net site, I think) was someone talking about being able to control a small boat. I have a lot of whitewater experience, so I can understand that. It's comforting to know you can right your boat without assistance, but at the same time it's rather discomforting to think that might be a regular activity. In the ocean, there are no eddies to pull into to gather your wits.

I think I will probably stick to the sounds and just crew on bigger boats in bigger water until I am ready to move up to something close to 30' with a keel. That is probably a few years away at best...


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## sailaway21 (Sep 4, 2006)

You may be interested in this video. Amazon.com: HOW TO EQUIP A TRAILER-SAILER FOR SERIOUS CRUISING: William B. Trescott: Video
It's the first video to be endorsed by Practical Sailor and describes how Wm Trescott modified his trailer-sailer to cross the Atlantic, cruise the canals of Europe, visit the Holy Land, and recross the Atlantic.

This isn't your shiny marina queen yacht, everything done on this boat was to a specific goal of seaworthiness, safety, and flexibility of use. And this surely isn't your standard guide to mounting yet another chart-plotter at the helm. It's more a guide as to how he transformed a pleasure boat into a working boat with an eye towards a specific goal-deep sea sailing.

It's well worth the money. And, if you're into trucking-the man is a truck driver, his web-site has some interesting things on that subject. You can find the videos on sailing/cruising as well as trucking on that site here: Trucking Video


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## lbdavis (Apr 23, 2007)

I don't know how small you wanna go, but here's an option for ya:

clicky-thing

I hope you have lot's of time and don't eat much.


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## sailortjk1 (Dec 20, 2005)

Lots of "Pocket Cruisers" out there.
Before we moved up in LOA, we sailed our Cal 25II over three hundered miles on a week long cruise. No Auto no nothing makes it a little more difficult but its doable. I would say it depends alot on your ablity and comfort levels.


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## TSOJOURNER (Dec 16, 1999)

sailaway21 said:


> You may be interested in this video. Amazon.com: HOW TO EQUIP A TRAILER-SAILER FOR SERIOUS CRUISING: William B. Trescott: Video
> It's the first video to be endorsed by Practical Sailor and describes how Wm Trescott modified his trailer-sailer to cross the Atlantic, cruise the canals of Europe, visit the Holy Land, and recross the Atlantic.
> 
> This isn't your shiny marina queen yacht, everything done on this boat was to a specific goal of seaworthiness, safety, and flexibility of use. And this surely isn't your standard guide to mounting yet another chart-plotter at the helm. It's more a guide as to how he transformed a pleasure boat into a working boat with an eye towards a specific goal-deep sea sailing.
> ...


I have browsed around and found that before. So have you watched it? I was a little leary of buying a tape. It seems like a lot of upgrades would require plans or diagrams; I have such in a couple of books and have dowloaded others from a few sites. It is helpful to see things explained rather than just reading sometimes, but it being a tape and not a DVD kinda bugged me also.

BTW, I keep saying I am not really thinking blue water in my boat but a little coastal sailing. I found a video which appears to be mostly very weird commentary, but right at the beginning from 0:28 to 0:48 you will see a boat sailing in exactly the place I was referring to in the other thread. That boat has just come out of the inlet at Lookout and is headed for Beaufort (or maybe it just came over from France; I can't be sure  )
YouTube - Risk Resolved
Those conditions are not abnormal.


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## tdw (Oct 2, 2006)

Dylan Winter. BBC radio presenter, author and by the look of things all round good bloke.

I picked this up on SA and encourage any of you who are into sailing on a very low key level to have a look.

He is doing a circumnavigation of Britain.

YouTube - KeepTurningLeft's [URL="http://www.sailnet.com/forums/autolink.php?id=77&script=showthread&forumid=5"]Videos

In this.

Mirror Offshore smallest motorsailer with Volvo Penta MD1

He'll be fine. He is no braggard, he's not trying to prove how big tough macho he is. He's just doing it. No flash.

The boat is a Van de Stadt design. Small cousin to Raven. I like that and wish him well.

(copy of previous post in another thread.)


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## sailingdog (Mar 19, 2006)

A lot of the modifications that would be necessary to any small cruising boat are discussed in the back of John Vigor's The Seaworthy Offshore Sailboat, since he has a fairly detailed description of what was done to make a Catalina 27 bluewater capable. 

Even if you don't want to go bluewater with your boat, making some of these modifications really make a lot of sense. For instance, many small coastal cruising boats don't have a proper bridgedeck. Mine certainly didn't, since the cockpit only had a three-inch high lip at the companionway. 

Last spring, I added a full bridgedeck to the cockpit. This increased the seaworthiness of the boat IMHO, since it reduced the possibility of the cockpit downflooding into the cabin and reduced the volume of seawater that can sit in the cockpit if the boat is pooped by FIVE cubic feet, or almost 325 lbs. of water. Even if you're just coastal cruising, I don't see this as anything but a plus. 

In addition to making the boat safer, it stiffened up the aft end of the boat, reinforced the aft ama crossbeam structure, gave the cabin 4.5 cubic feet of stowage I didn't have previously, and added some more seating to the cockpit. All of these are good things as far as I can see.


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## sailaway21 (Sep 4, 2006)

arbarnhart said:


> I have browsed around and found that before. So have you watched it? I was a little leary of buying a tape. It seems like a lot of upgrades would require plans or diagrams; I have such in a couple of books and have dowloaded others from a few sites. It is helpful to see things explained rather than just reading sometimes, but it being a tape and not a DVD kinda bugged me also.
> 
> BTW, I keep saying I am not really thinking blue water in my boat but a little coastal sailing. I found a video which appears to be mostly very weird commentary, but right at the beginning from 0:28 to 0:48 you will see a boat sailing in exactly the place I was referring to in the other thread. That boat has just come out of the inlet at Lookout and is headed for Beaufort (or maybe it just came over from France; I can't be sure  )
> YouTube - Risk Resolved
> Those conditions are not abnormal.


Barney,
It's not a tape that's going to give you plans for your boat or any other boat specifically. It's just a good amount of I did this for this reason and here's how I fitted this in and, oh, I needed this so I changed that. It gets your imagination going in more than one way.

I think that there are often only two types of boat owners. The first picks his boat out for what he wants and calls it good based upon his comfort level with what the designer/manufacturer produced. That owner probably wouldn't add a ventilation port without agonizing over the decision and then would probably have a pro do the job just for reassurance and to avoid an error. The second kind of owner is always looking to make his boat that much better. It's not that he likes the boat any less but he's always thinking of how he could achieve better performance, better seaworthiness, and easier sailing. That type of owner usually gets the Sawzall out and starts cutting. If he makes a mistake, he flips a few pages to the section on laying up fiberglas. Needless to say, the first owner's boat is usually spotless and the second's has at a minimum a bunch of excess silicone he needs to clean up. Tresscott is definitely in the latter category. It's all about sailing and making work what you've got.


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## sailingdog (Mar 19, 2006)

well said....and I'd be the second type, not the first. 


sailaway21 said:


> Barney,
> It's not a tape that's going to give you plans for your boat or any other boat specifically. It's just a good amount of I did this for this reason and here's how I fitted this in and, oh, I needed this so I changed that. It gets your imagination going in more than one way.
> 
> I think that there are often only two types of boat owners. The first picks his boat out for what he wants and calls it good based upon his comfort level with what the designer/manufacturer produced. That owner probably wouldn't add a ventilation port without agonizing over the decision and then would probably have a pro do the job just for reassurance and to avoid an error. The second kind of owner is always looking to make his boat that much better. It's not that he likes the boat any less but he's always thinking of how he could achieve better performance, better seaworthiness, and easier sailing. That type of owner usually gets the Sawzall out and starts cutting. If he makes a mistake, he flips a few pages to the section on laying up fiberglas. Needless to say, the first owner's boat is usually spotless and the second's has at a minimum a bunch of excess silicone he needs to clean up. Tresscott is definitely in the latter category. It's all about sailing and making work what you've got.


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## TSOJOURNER (Dec 16, 1999)

Mine has some excess epoxy right now, which is unfortunately a little harder to clean up than silicone.  Sand, sand, sand. I had some delam on the foredeck that got much worse after the recent hot spell and I had trouble convincing myself the core wasn't soft as it was flexing. I took a couple of small samples from the underside and they looked okay but when I could not get the top skin to stay put using the "small holes and screws" technique I got from a boat repair book (you drill several small holes through th top layer, squirt epoxy through, use screws to hold the skin down to the core while it dries and then back the screws out and repair all the screw holes) I decided I needed to be sure of what I was dealing with and put in an inspection hatch on deck at a spot where I want to put a larger vent/moonroof hatch someday anyway. The core is fine. It flexes when one skin is loose but is rock solid with bot skins attached. With a decent sized hole there, it was easy to slater a bunch of thickened epoxy under the top skin and clamp. I also sealed the edge with an abundance of thickened epoxy and bedded the screw holes. In doing this, I managed to get a little epoxy outside the target area. Some I did on purpose - smearing it into small surface cracks (I am planning to pain soon) and some was just missed in cleanup. It's a bear to remove.


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## CrazyRu (May 10, 2007)

hillbillybear said:


> What is the smallest known sailboat to be out cruising at this time? Does anyone know of any trailer sailers or of any open boats? Where are they cruising? Are these folks having any difficulties? Just curious.


Microcruising in the Bahamas


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## TSOJOURNER (Dec 16, 1999)

I've been looking for stories of people sailing small boats on a budget to find out if it's feasible for me, and there's loads about.

It's been done before. Just copy one of these guys if you want: Search for "famous small boats"


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## TSOJOURNER (Dec 16, 1999)

*blue water cruising on a trailer sailer*

Just saw this small review in a sailing mag. the other day. Sounds like it would be a really nice read. Title is "Further Offshore" by Ed Mapes. I guess he goes into rather fine detail on equipping a trailer sailer for going offshore, or at least that is what the review said. Review said some of it seems to go on and on and may be a bit boring but when one is trying to cross the Gulf Stream or do something really absurd like sail a 20 footer to Hawaii or to the Marshall Is. you'd better be ready. Cheers


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## TSOJOURNER (Dec 16, 1999)

There is a Cal 20 in the TransPac that is doing fine last I heard.


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