Why a Smaller Sailboat is Better!

For my particular situation, a smaller sailboat will fill my needs much better than a large sailboat. In the past two years that I have owned a 29' sailboat that stays docked at a marina an hour and a half drive away I have gotten alot of use out of the boat. The first summer of owning the boat every 3 out of 4 weekends were spent on the boat, that's a pretty good bit in my opinion.

The thing is, I have a 29' sailboat with potential to sail around the world (the Watkins 29 has circumnavigated) yet I haven't done a more than one overnight out on the boat at a time and that was still in my local bay! Talk about a little embarrassing. The question is why though?

A big part in it is that I had no one who actually wanted to do that to go with me. Every weekend it was mostly my girlfriend and I on the boat. She enjoyed it most of the time and I am very glad she put up with my wanting to go to the boat every weekend. She didn't like not having somewhere to hook her blow dryer up to, or having a shower that she didn't have to worry about using to much water, or being able to watch TV, or having A/C all night, or a refrigerator along with many of the other conveniences that you have at home.

Also, we have a 29' boat and I can think of only FIVE TIMES that we had guest sailing with us on board. Which makes me thing why do we need such a big boat?!? Never did we have anyone spend the night at anchor with us so we don't need a large cabin.

Really we didn't get to SAIL as much as I wanted to, no where even close. Because I knew that my girlfriend didn't want to get out when it was blowing over 15 knots.

In my heart, I want to SAIL, I want to GO SOMEWHERE, I want to SAIL THOUGH THE NIGHT on a one or two day hop, I want to SAIL THE KEYS, SAIL TO THE BAHAMAS, I want to do more than stick around the local bay and be stuck at the slip, I WANT TO GO!!!



How do I do this?

Well, it sounds like I need to be able to do it alone, which is perfectly fine by me. I don't mind roughing it one bit if I need to. To do it alone I would like a small boat that I can handle easily by myself, and that is capable of doing all the things I want to accomplish.

That is where a small trailerable boat comes in. There are trade offs with a trailerable boat then there are many advantages to consider also. Here are some starting with a few negatives:

-Less room and generally no standing head room
-Possibly more work getting underway, like stepping the mast
-Generally not as heavy as larger boats and therefore less seaworthy
-Not as much as a status symbol, who needs that anyways, but still an excellent eye catcher (especially a 17 footer)

Positives:
+Initial investment is quite less
+Ability to sail different areas easily
+No slip/haul out fees
+Easier to complete your own maintenance
+Less bottom maintenance
+Less storage (which means that you can't spend more money on a bunch of unessential gadgets and what-not)
+Cheaper transient slip costs
+So many affordable options on the market to choose from
+Cheaper to outfit: sails, lines, winches, anchors and rode, less paint needed, less fuel consumption and much more
+The ability to row or scull if need be
+Cheaper Insurance
+Less invested and therefore if you loose your boat for some reason you are aren't out a fortune

So I think a smaller sailboat is just what I need, then I can get out there and fulfill some of my dreams!

Future sailing thoughts....

In the previous post I mentioned that I am selling the Watkins 29 due to high cost of owning a large sailboat that sits in a slip and doesn't get used like I wish. So here are my thoughts on possible plans once the boat finally sells, hopefully this spring.

Smaller is better, at least for my situation. (I will elaborate on this in a later post)

So I am trying to find a few small trailerable sailboats that can handle heavy weather and can be sailed across the gulf stream to the Bahamas safely without much worry. What I have found are a few boats that fit my criteria.

My first choice at this moment is the Montgomery 17, a small seaworthy vessel capable of extensive cruising but in small "camping" like conditions which is absolutely fine for me at this point in my life. The boat can be purchased at a very reasonable price, from $5,000 to $10,000 for a pretty well equipped but in good condition. A new one can be had at $20,000 which is a very reasonable price in my opinion for a new and very strong boat.



Others are the West Wight Potters, Compacs, and other small but capable boats.

The Montgomery 17 seems to stand out above the rest to be a more seaworthy and overly built boat.

What have I been up to?

It has been quite a long time since I posted in my Sailing and Such blog. Not sure why, but I think this happens fairly often to a pretty large ammount of people.

In short, my computer crashed due to some adware and I haven't been able to remove it yet. Also, the website Sailing and Such has crashed due to the web host has some major problems and everyone's website under them also crashed. So, I do not have access to the files that are on my "crashed" computer to upload the site to the web.

My South Coast 22 project sailboat isn't coming along very fast due to lack of funds to puchase the needed epoxy and paint needed to finish the boat, as well as a few other things.

The PK 7'8 dinghy is currently undergoing a paint job and a varnish job, I am paint the inside of the boat white and the outer hull a baby blue color. The seat tops and the rubrail as well as a few other trim pieces are being varnished to leave the nice woodgrain look.

The Watkins 29 is still up for sale and the asking price has dropped considerably. I really hope that it sells this spring so that I can get the $300 a month slip rent out of the way as well as the MANY other expensive maintenance cost that come with owning a larger sailboat.

There are other thoughts in the works also that I will share in other posts soon to come.

The first sea trials are over!

I finished up the dinghy, well not totally finished but good enough to take the boat for a test sail.

The day was rainy with not much wind. The boat was solid as a rock but a little tippy getting in and out, but once your in it your fine. The wind was poor so I really didn't get to sail.

I didn't rig the sail until we were on site, so first I had to cut lines for everything and setup all the rigging for the first time. I think I did pretty good but I didn't have the holes drilled into the mast, sprit, and boom like I needed to but I made things work with a little duct tape! Although it wasn't perfect it looked nice.

The boom was to low, the sail wasn't tight, the tiller was to long, the oars weren't finished, and the daggerboard trunk had a leak. No real major problems other than the leak but that can be fixed. I am just a little concerned if the leak allowed the plywood to get wet. I am thinking that it probably didn't because everything was coated with epoxy pretty well. Just my putty work around the daggerboard trunk wasn't exactly good looking.

It was really a great experience though, to be floating in a boat that I built myself, it was very rewarding. I even had a freind video tape some of it, check it out!



Also, I haven't mentioned it but, I have been recording the entire construction process and posting it on the internet. Here is the first video, follow THIS LINK to check out the rest of them!

Nearing Completion!!!!

The dinghy is coming along nicely!

As you can see, I have the seat tops cut out and installed! Now the boat is really coming together and it doesn't look like just a bunch of plywood.

In order to install the seat tops I had to glue some cleats along the hull that would serve as supports for the seat tops. This was pretty easy, just had to make the marks, cut the blocks the mix some putty and stick them where they needed to go. I am really glad that the putty was sticky enough to hold the blocks in place so that I didn't have to worry about holding each one up while they dried. After they dried, I gave them all a good coat of epoxy.


I knew that cutting out the seat tops would be difficult because of the odd angles and the weird curves. So I went to Walmart and bought a few peices of posterboard to use as patterns. It didn't take me long to get the correct shape and cut out the seat tops. Once they were cut out I gave the underside of each seat two coats of epoxy so that I wouldn't have to coat the underside when they were installed on the boat.

Then I mixed up some more putty and just glued the tops in place, no big deal. I did have to put some heavy weights on top of the boards to hold them in place while the epoxy set up. (a vice and large chain work well for this)

I left a spot in the rear seat for a lid so that I could use that compartment for storage. I built the lid out of some scrap antique heart pine I had laying around from some of my furniture projects. It worked well and should look beautiful on the boat.

I also installed the mast step, it was no big deal....

The thing sure is coming along! I plan on being finished some time next week.

Built the sail today!

I have been gone for a week, but it was on a cruise so I am not complaining! I needed some warm weather......

(I will post about the cruise later)

Anyways, I am hoping to have the dinghy finished before next weekend so that we can take it to the beach with us, I am so ready. Since my sewing skills are not very good, my mother and I stitched up a homemade sail today. It didn't take us very long, I would say 2 hours maybe a little longer.

The material is a painter's canvas dropcloth that I bought from Lowe's for pretty cheap, under $20 bucks. It's a light tan color so it looks traditional. The only thing I am worried about is that it isn't water proof or water resistant but it's the first sail and a "trail" one before I make one out of a better quality and more expensive material.

It was no problem cutting it out, then we ironed the folds along the edges before we sewed them with my mother's sewing machine. Once this was done I just put a few gromets where I believe they should go (I looked at photos of other sails on the internet) and it was done. No big deal at all!

Slow Progress- Oars and Tiller work

I managed to get in about a day of work on the dinghy this past week. I was working on the tiller, the oars, and the cleats that the seats mount too.

For the tiller, I laminated three strips of 3/4 inch pine together to form a square post. The plans show a slot that you leave out of one end of the tiller for the rudder to stick through. It was pretty easy to laminate it together, I used waterproof wood glue instead of epoxy (epoxy isn't cheap) and I think it should work fine because I am going to cover the entire thing with epoxy.


After the glue dried I used a hand plane to taper the tiller into a handle. This wasn't very difficult and didn't take to long either, I enjoy using a hand plane. After I planed it down good enough I sanded it smooth and rounded the edges and it really looks good. I didn't get a photo of the final piece but I will once I put a coat of epoxy on it (hopefully this week).

I also worked on the oars a good bit. I finished planing one down but I still need to do some finishing cutting with my band saw and some sanding to give it a nice smoothe and fluid look. They really are looking pretty good!




Looks like I may not get to much work in on the dinghy this week because I will be working in my mother's roof truss manufacturing plant. I work here from time to time whenever they get busy (which isn't often enough in this economy) and now a lot of work has come in at one time.