While I know that the overall consensus is that the best cruising dinghy is an eight or ten-foot RIB with a 9.9/15 HP engine but I’ll just have to disagree. For a long time I’ll admit that I thought the best cruising dinghy was Phil Bolger’s Tortoise as it did everything we needed it to …
Atom Voyages does their thing on a Cape Dory 27.
I’ve long wanted to build a small canal cruiser for the time that I’m past my sailing days. Philip Thiel’s Joli Boat has always been at the top pf my list and a great example of getting the most livability into a 22’9″ X 8′ envelope. As it happens “Small Boats Magazine” has an excellent …
I know everyone says that when using plywood aboard a boat that one should always use the best marine plywood you can get. So here’s where that advice does not quite add up. Some time back I built a hard dodger with marine ply, saturated it with epoxy and glassed then painted it. I was …
I read recently how Keith Leitzke has returned from another cruise to nowhere in particular and it got me thinking about a few things… The first being how that Bill Lapworth’s CAL 20 is still a great minimal cruising design in spite of the fact that it was never really designed to be one. While …
regarding a very long voyage in a pretty small boat… Read More »
Plus, I’ve always liked the Poker design.
Over a long period of time I’ve been troubled about some “truths” a lot of folks take as gospel… Like this one. “Boats break. A lot.” A phrase found a few times over at The Retirement Project (a blog you might want to check out from time to time) which I find somewhat problematic. …
A friend and I have been discussing an idea I have for rehabbing an old small classic plastic design and turning it into a VolksCruiser… The boat in question happens to be a Columbia 26. As it happens I’ve always liked the Columbia 26… Studying the current crop of the C26 for sale floating around, …
I’ve been reading “Building the Uqbar Dinghy” and it really is a great book for those who want to build a good dinghy in a weekend… Yes, really, a weekend. Fact is, I like the dinghies so much I’m pretty sure I’m going to build one in the very near future. The only problem being …
Jay Fitzgerald (whose book should be on every VolksCruisers bookshelf) has mentioned that boat size should reflect muscle power and as far he could figure that 1 to 50 was the ratio that made sense. Offhand, I expect he’s pretty close to being right on the money… So, what does that work out to in …
