The Cardigan Bay Lugger

Birth of a small boat.
June 2006

"How a landlocked sailor finally got on the water without causing domestic disharmony."

Early Retirement! Was this Natures way of getting the house re-painted and The Garden (four apple trees and a cat toilet) tidied up or could there be a more exciting way of spending my declining years? After 35 years of a stressful job (name one that isn't.) I felt that I had earned a little self-indulgence - and so I decided to buy a boat.

Not an obvious decision for someone living in Nottinghamshire, about as far from the sea as you can get in the UK, so I expected at least a modicum of derision on going public to the family. Not a bit of it.

"Good." said my wife. "Perhaps we can get rid of all that pornography under the bed."

This, I would like to make clear, was a reference to nothing sleazier than the random collection of "Watercraft", "PBO" and "Sailing Today" magazines kept handy for quick reference. Younger members of the family, my four daughters, were actually encouraging - an almost unheard of circumstance - and clubbed together to surprise me with a handheld, waterproof GPS set as a retirement gift. I was touched and a little overwhelmed until they rather spoiled the effect with comments about coming into their inheritance from the "miserable old git" the sooner when the batteries run out mid ocean. I chose to ignore the badinage. I can well believe that they think of me as "old" - that's just the arrogance of youth - but an inheritance? How strange that they know nothing of Equity Release.

There are many ways to get on the water and I wondered what kind of boating would suit me best now I had a more or less free choice. Large cruisers were ruled out straight away due to the lack of reliable crew, i.e. people willing to turn out when it suited me to go sailing. Wind surfers and small dinghies were fun, perhaps, but rather like a visit to the gym. You get into your gear, sail up and down the reservoir for a bit, have a gossip in the locker room then come home. Small, long keeled cruisers were much more to my taste, but still had to be ruled out. I didn't want to spend too much time on the motorway just to get to my ‘marine potting shed' on its expensive mooring. Even with a big 4x4, a large trailer sailer would not be too much fun to tow anywhere more than once or twice a season and would probably end up on a mooring miles from home - so not much advantage over the more seaworthy keel boats. I had a soft spot for Sea Kayaks, (you can launch anywhere and carry plenty of camping kit), but even in my youth I could not "Eskimo roll" reliably enough to be safe - so I turned my attention to day boats.

This was more like it! Cutters, yawls, skiffs and gaffers. All oozing tradition and low maintenance glass fibre in equal quantities. Solid sea boats, some of them, and plenty around on the second hand market, too. I started wandering the country from boatyard to boatyard and re-reading all those magazines from under the bed. Test reports on Drascombes, Whammels, Pilot boats, Shrimpers, and Norfolk Oysters. Met some nice people and saw some very nice boats. Gradually I began to have a clearer idea of what my particular ideal boat would be like: -

•             Single hander with room in the cockpit for three or four "guests"

•             Easily trailed long distances by my present car. (Subaru Impreza Sport.)

•             Easily launched and recovered on my own.

•             Powerful enough sail plan - without resort to spinnaker - for good performance in normal conditions.

•             A capable sea boat in more testing conditions so should be RCD Cat. C or better.

• Have facilities to make camping on board for a couple of days a pleasure rather than an ordeal. (Any fool can be uncomfortable.)

•             Be aesthetically pleasing. A "proper" boat, not a caravan with sails.

Much searching failed to reveal a boat that had an acceptable balance to these contrasting qualities. Those coming the nearest were just too big and heavy to make easy trailing an option although surfing the net revealed a lively subculture of dinghy cruisers both here and in the States. There were dozens of American micro-cruiser designs around and they all seemed to be intended for export. You could tell. They were mostly the same shape as a shipping container.

I had almost resigned myself to settling for an open boat, probably something like an Iain Oughtred Ness Yawl, when, after putting my credit cards in a safe place to avoid temptation, I took myself off to the Southampton Boat show, hanging my nose over a new Drascombe - and there bumped into Matt Newland of Swallow Boats.

Previously, at Beale Park, I had been much impressed by his marine ply Storm 17, a two masted development of the Storm Petrel. The S 17 was gorgeous. Light and commodious, it sailed around the lake at quite a lick considering the lack of wind but with mainsail dropped would be safe and weatherly in any conditions I would care to experience. The spray hood would shelter the grandchildren in a slop and the foredeck provided ‘dry stowage under' for sleeping bags and the makings of a decent breakfast. Trailing would be effortless. The only downside I could see was that compared to the heavily built dinghies of my youth it would be a bit tippy for elderly relatives attempting to board via the gunwale. Zimmer frame related drownings a distinct possibility. The conversation at Southampton, originally centred around the new glass fibre S17, on public display for the first time and looking every inch a winner, fairly rapidly moved on to the S19. I mentioned - in passing - that a lid on the S19 might produce my ideal boat. Matt replied - casually - that he'd been thinking along those lines himself. Perhaps with a transom stern and about 21' on the waterline? No. I couldn't afford that. Stick to the S19, then? (This was beginning to feel like ordering a new suit.) My mind began to work overtime but I played it cool. Wouldn't do to appear too keen at this point. Wiping drool from my chin I suggested that it might make an interesting project for some one. Matt agreed. Possibly do-able even at the miserly price I was prepared to offer. Lacking my credit cards, Matt was spared the embarrassment of having money forced into his hand there and then. Over the next few months a series of e-mails between us made sure that we both knew each others constraints and preferences and Matt has evolved a design, based on the S19, that apparently meets all my needs, plus a few I didn't know I had, all at a price I was willing to pay. Styled the Cardigan Bay Lugger she has all the accommodation I need in the cuddy and in the cockpit, will be ideal for the kind of boating I want to do both in this country and abroad and, with her hull shape and sail plan, is a delight to the eye. Take a look at the pictures.

To get to Greece you have to go over (or rather, under) the alps. No problem with a light wooden boat.

Not only that, she is so light that my 2 litre car doesn't know she's there and, when unhitched, one person can shove her around like a wheel barrow. Towing to Greece this year was no hassle. It was actually enjoyable enough for us to consider doing it on a regular basis. To describe her in a little more detail, the Cardigan Bay Lugger is a double ender with a large cockpit and a small cuddy. She looks beautiful on and off the water - so much so that I'm thinking of asking Matt for a few dozen business cards to save me the trouble of explaining over and over again what she is and where she comes from. Leave her for 5mins at a service station and when you come back three middle-aged blokes will be arguing over her origins - often in three different languages. Sail up to a beach or a pontoon and people in bikinis run and jostle each other to take your mooring lines - and they don't all work for the Tavernas.

Actually sailing the lugger is when you see that the money was well spent. I've been used to less tippy things with half a ton or so of ballast under me but when she's reaching at 5 knots in an F3 I wouldn't swap! You are close enough to the water for a considerable "Go-Kart" effect, which adds to the impression of speed, but she stays dry even without the spray hood.

With twin bilge boards she doesn't like to heel too much, none of this "lee rail under" nonsense, and she's very sensitive to the mizzen sheeting. Get it wrong and you'll lose a knot or two but once you get your eye in it acts like an accelerator pedal. The balanced lug main sail (with two sets of reefing points) takes hardly any effort to raise as the yard is very light carbon fibre. The mainsheet track on the cabin top along, with the down haul by the mast, gets it into shape without fuss. The mainsheet comes to hand from a block by the mizzen mast and although it does pull a little I've so far resisted the expense of a ratchet block. When you want to douse the sail, lazy jacks help drop both it and the yard neatly on the cabin top where I use shock cord loops to lash the whole thing, along with the boom, safely to the starboard grab rail, clear of the fore hatch, ready for motoring or anchor work. It only takes a few seconds, if you've remembered to head up into the wind first, of course. A more presentable harbour stow takes a little longer. The mizzen stows away easily by simply unhooking the sprit boom and twisting the mast, rolling the sail and a couple of feet of the sheet around it. A sail tie or two hold the sprit boom neatly to the mast to keep it out of the way. I always get the outboard running before taking in the mizzen to make sure she stays head to wind as I'm not keen on too much wallowing in a beam sea. Motoring with the 4hpYamaha is a pleasure. At full throttle (6 knots on the GPS) you can talk without raised voices and throttled back to two-thirds power ( still giving 4 knots +) you can hardly hear it over the sound of your own bow wave. With an external tank you can motor all day long and not end up with a headache. The only drawback is that at tick over speeds she doesn't exactly turn on a sixpence and coming alongside in a confined space needs planning- and a boat hook to hand is a comfort.

Bad weather expected. All safely tucked up behind the breakwater.

Anchoring by the stern is easy from the cockpit, making Mediterranean style mooring (bows on) a one-man job. Anchoring by the head involves either a trip over the cabin top or some wriggling out of the fore hatch. Once tied up you can begin to appreciate how comfortable the large cockpit is. With nicely rounded backrests four or five people can lounge around without bumping knees. The spray hood only shelters those sitting on or around the bridge deck so I'm making up a proper sun awning for use in port next year. The cuddy gives you good sitting head room which makes cooking risotto for two (or more) relatively easy, even with one of the off duty crew lounging around inside with a book and a glass of wine. The bridge deck is the ideal spot for a chopping board so long as people do not insist in nipping in and out to the cockpit too often. (If they want to talk to friends onshore I encourage the use of the fore hatch which is just large enough for me to get my 14 stone through.) You might think that a two burner stove would be a better option than the simple camping stove I use but I have no wish to deprive restaurants or taverna s of my custom on a regular basis. Sleeping on board is luxurious for one and quite comfortable for two, specially if you are friends. (I can't remember when I last slept with a stranger so no worries there.)

Three hatches make ventilation problem free. The cabin is, in fact, a very pleasant place to sit out the heat of a Greek mid-day siesta or to brew up a cuppa when parked up in a UK shower. A little more insulation might help snug it up in hard weather - but my wife says that hotels were thought of for just such an eventuality. I must say that I totally agree. The bridge deck has been designed to take a chemical toilet in the central compartment. Fine if you are cruising on your own, I suppose, but otherwise, seeing as how it'll be me emptying the damn thing, a strict "SOS" policy will continue to be enforced.

Now. Bit of a problem. Although I didn't want to be spending money on a marina berth for a 30' Hustler I do have younger members of my family saying "Oh, you could get a proper boat for that money!" Meaning big enough for them and their mates to go on the ARC, no doubt. On the other hand, when I describ the sort of boating I intend to friends they surmise that a Drascombe Dabber would do the job pretty well and show me ads. for "£3,750 ono with 6hp ob (new 1998). Must be seen." I also had this, (an actual quote from a reasonable, well meaning friend with no eye on a possible inheritance) "Why spend money on an untried plywood prototype, possibly with a low resale value? Get an old Drascombe! When you've got all this trailer sailer nonsense out of your system you can get most of your money back and put it towards something like my Westy."

They are forgetting a few things. I don't ever want to own an "average white boat" bobbing about on a remote mooring for most of its life. You can hire one of those things for a flotilla holiday with your family if you really want to - and it can be in Croatia or Italy rather than the chilly UK! Old Drascombes (excellent boats, not to be made light of) can cost a small fortune to get up to spec. - and have you ever tried straightening a bent rudder? Marine ply used to have a bad reputation but the modern stuff, especially with West System epoxy-ply construction, is light, strong and durable enough for Swallow Boats to give a six year warranty on the hull.

My friends' Westerly, by the way, is on a pretty mooring in Dorset. A 4-hour drive away. It gets visited "most week ends". (Yeah, Right! You believe that, don't you!) This summer they took her to the Channel Islands for a "whole" week. It rained all the way there and they had to motor all the way back. Not my idea of fun when you consider that for the same financial outlay my wife and I have spent every August on a Greek island for the last ten years! My boat will be earning its keep - mid week, week ends and holidays abroad. Especially holidays abroad. Over the next few years I want to go to Brittany, Scandinavia, the Baltic, Eire, Western Isles, Spain, Italy and Greece but I do not want to spend a couple of weeks getting there. The lugger is so easily trailed that the most distant of these cruising grounds is only a few days away. I'm quite sure that Ellen MacArthur wouldn't look twice at a Cardigan Bay Lugger but the only blue water sailing I want to do is in the Ionian. That's blue enough for me!

Portal to Paxos. "Ana Hora" the little seasonal ferry from Igoumenitsa.

With the decisions made and the invoices drawn up I thought I might find that indulging my long held boating fantasies would leave me wishing for a small Euro-lottery win or two, but, it turns out, I am no more out of pocket with the Cardigan Bay Lugger than with some osmotic 1970's glass fibre cruiser. More to the point, I will be able to get on the water when I like, where I like and perhaps more importantly, as often as I like - and all this without compromising the high esteem and respect afforded to me by my children. Yes. That's right. There will be no need for Equity Release after all.

O.K. then. Can I interest anyone in a few well-thumbed back copies of PBO? I won't be needing them where I'm going. If you happen to be in the Ionian during August and come across a smart, two masted Lugger named "Four Sisters" with a gentleman of mature years at the helm, grinning like an idiot and surrounded by a crew of attractive young women - that's me, that is! The crew will be my wife and daughters, unfortunately. Best not to be too ambitious at first.

Ahem!   Only joking dear!    (Didn't think she was listening....)