by L.A. Gill

At the after end of Beachcomber is a locker, the door of which is detachable so that, supported by a leg at the forward end, it does duty as a table. You have probably seen similar in caravans. Sat in the side benches two persons may eat in comfort, with their feet under the table.

The snag at first was the shape of the tent. Slung over the raised boom and lashed to the side of the boat, it presented a typical triangular tent shape, which meant that one’s abdomen was screwed up whilst eating — not conducive to good digestion as one could not sit upright (Fig. a).

An idea was sought to overcome this problem — the tent needed to be converted from the shape of a triangle to that of an upturned hard-chine hull. The trouble with bright ideas is that they usually involve finding storage room for extra gear, so on the basis that each item must perform a double duty (like the table), I looked around the boat for something I could use. When rigged for sleeping on board, I never quite knew what to do with the oars; here was a chance to make them useful.

Rigging the tent the usual way, but leaving the sides slack, I hung the oars from the boom inside the tent by passing a line from one oar around the boom to the other, both fore and aft. The oars were then kept apart by an athwartships stretcher (both fore and aft) as one does with the clews of a hammock (Fig. b).

Canvas covered spring clip at each end of a batten are ideal (Fig. c).

When rigged and adjusted, my tent now looks like Fig. d. The after stretcher is right aft out of the way, the forward stretcher is about amidship, very handy for slinging one’s clothes over at night.

All the extra gear carried to effect this change is two stretchers and, to give them double duty, I make use of them as whisker poles, one end clipping around the mast.

Also, I have been able to throw overboard the dyspepsia powders!