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There are lot of nice cruising second hand dinghies (wanderer, wayfarer) in the UK and I was wondering whether some of you have tried to import/export a small boat across the channel post Brexit. The plan would be to take the ferry across the channel with the boat in tow. Is it just a matter of...

For those who don't want to reef :

There was definitely the Trismus 37 which had 2 centreboards, with the rear centreboard down and the front one up, boat would definitely reach the west indies without an autopilot : Not a fast boat but a pretty good one to cruise the world. I think that there were others with a daggerboard...

It just shows that you can have kick up rudder and end-plate. If you absolutely want an end plate, without the complications above, it can be as simple as horizontal fins toward the top of the rudder. If you don't want endplate, just trim the boat properly as it should be, rudder will be used...

Yes but a safety factor of 4 compared to "whale loading" is probably impractical (boat displacement x 8g from the bottom + boat displacement x 8g from the side to withsdand a 2 g acceleration ? :-o ), so you need to accept that in exceptional circumstances something is going to break and in...

Actually, too robust might be the issue... However strong you build something, with enough force you can break that thing somewhere with somewhere being the weakest link. Here may be the skeg was so heavily built that the skeg broke the hull!

That is just the normal thing on a tiller boat, the other way round would boggle my mind! I only started to have the opportunity to use wheel boats well in my thirties whereas I learnt how to use a tiller as a young boy, as a consequence in harbours I tend to grab the lower spoke, i still find...

I think they will rejoin in the 2030s I can see several options : They get a "special deal" because they need to feel special, in practice it is a Norway or a Swiss deal disguised as a British deal. This one could happen quite soon. Following the Ukraine war, the EU creates a new commercial...

Is there something wrong with the rig ? I would be wary of relying only on the engine of a boat that is new to me!

Oh.... I forgot that you were owning a boat with a self standing rig! It is a bit different then. I knew that it would be easier, I believe you but even though, I find less than 1 minute to reef really impressive. Unless you have a proper racing crew onboard, it takes time to do anything!

Time it... If you are reefing, wind is going up, sea is probably not so calm and it takes time to move around. Not adjusting heading is a bit silly, even offshore racers do it, ideally you want speed to have an efficient rudder and the main not to chafe against the shrouds, the window is rather...

A minute is short... Just adjusting the heading, uncoiling the halyard and the reefing lines, releasing the mainsheet, the traveller and the kicker... and your minute is nearly gone!

May be there were no scuba divers involved... Or may be the divers just marked the location! 30 years ago, I was on a mine sweeper, we were using tethered diving robots that were already old technology to deal with mines. In 2022 may be there is a miniature version of it, also 500kg of explosive...

2.3 on the richter scale may have measured the Depressurization of the pipe... Sure I don't have a clue how they did it, once you consider that the Brits managed to sink Germans ships with canoe during WW2, I think that the Bavaria story is believable. Aith a 50 feet sailboat, they had a...

Bringing a jib on the foredeck, battling with another one to get it down, rehoisting the new one plus bringing back the old one was a real PITA.

The reefing horns were not very practical, I would not have one except on a racing boat. It is easy to replace them with a downhaul and a strap around the mast. On an older boat, worst case scenario, you have the halyard in the cockpit and the reefing lines at the gooseneck. Even so, it can be...

Good looking boat to my eyes, It is all subjective but IMHO double ender works well on narrow boats, not so well on fatter designs as stern end up the shape of a bulbous transom which is a bit pointless. IME a longer boat is always superior in term of speed and sea handling characteristics so...

It doesn't bring extra benefit compared to a single line slab reefing system while you still need to pay attention to boom angle and tension while hoisting or reefing it... Without an electric winch, it would be very hard to hoist or reef single-handed.

Then why people buying second hand boats want to pay extra for it ?

La vagabonde finally got the clickbait right to get my attention. And that was entertaining. I still don't get why people keep speccing complicated systems to replace simple stuff that works....