Sir, - I have read with interest the article on “Camping Ashore” in the last number of the Bulletin. I wonder if the implication in the last line is that in spite of his good advice to campers the writer prefers sleeping aboard? I should like to endorse this and would advise all those taking up dinghy cruising to find some method of sleeping aboard and to avoid, at all costs, the necessity of landing each night. For one thing, all small boat cruising depends on working the tides. If one has to strike camp and wade through mud to the boat, one does not feel tempted to catch an early morning tide and may find that the best part of the day must be spent waiting for the next flood to reach the dinghy. It is most frustrating to see a good sailing breeze wasted in this way!

There are numerable methods of rigging an awning, most of them troublesome. A sleeping bag with a waterproof cover can be used without an awning in fine weather, provided there is some cover for stores and gear. It is surprising though how heavy the dew can be on a fine night and how very damping the mist that hangs about the surface of the water. In my 14 footer, I have sleeping aboard made luxurious – a small cabin just big enough for two (small) people and a boat cover tucked in over the stores in the cockpit. The floor boards are high enough above the bilges to avoid sleeping in a puddle, unless the boat were to become so full of water that it would be as well to wake up anyhow!

But even with a wet awning taking the best part of an hour’s work (and many oaths) to fit, may I be preserved from tending warps, wading through mud and incurring the wrath of landowners? Troubles begin when the boat touches the shore and an anchorage is a better resting place than a campsite. Joan Bentley

Sir, - Miss Bentley is quite right in her supposition that I prefer to sleep on board my boat. For the out and out dinghy cruiser who wishes to get places this is the only real answer. I could not agree more with what she says about wasting time finding sites and de-camping.

On the other hand, I always like to carry a tent for sleeping ashore if I want to. After a week’s cruising it does make a change to stretch one’s limbs and spend the night ashore. The tent comes in particularly useful when I have a large, or mixed, crew on board - or for use after three or four days of really rough weather when everything is sodden. It is quite often used after social functions. I find it much easier just to open a tent flap, undress and crawl into my sleeping bag than wallow around in the mud in my shore gear trying to find my elusive dinghy amidst the others and the blackness of the night.

In closing, I would like to add that most of my sleeping ashore in the past has been forced upon me by vessels which leaked just a trifle too much. John D Reeve