I had always cruised in heavy boats until last year, when I decided that, living fifty miles inland and having children too small to enjoy any but the most limited type of coastal dinghy cruising, there would be great advantages in a boat I could trail home after each brief cruise. I think that a comparison of what could be done with my previous boat with the possibilities of my present one may illuminate the argument “Iight versus heavy”.

Widsith was a very heavy clinker-built fourteen footer, 14 feet by 5, drawing one foot without plate, and displacing 12½ cwt. She had a small, dry, cramped cabin, and was gunter rigged with 100 sq. ft. of sail. I bought her for single-handed coastal cruising. Her advantages were weight and toughness. I like to amble comfortably when I cruise alone. I did occasionally have to sit Widsith up, to the extent of moving from a position on the sidebench to one on the side deck. When this did not give me enough weight to keep her upright without letting fly the sheet, I reefed. I had never any serious thought of capsizing her, and I could move about aboard her without upsetting her stability much. She would lie rolling about in a rough sea with the wind spilled from the sails while I reefed, without giving cause for alarm. Single-handed coastal passages in a dinghy are always limited by the factor of fatigue, but I am sure this was reduced greatly by the absence of any need for acrobatics to keep her sailing and right way up.

Another factor indirectly resulting from weight was the size of the centreplate - light and triangular, pulled up easily with one hand by a metal rod with a handle, and equally easy to force down when the case was jammed with mud and pebbles. Experts agree that deep centreplates are dangerous at sea, and there was no need for a deep heavy plate in a boat already so heavy.

When I sailed on the Essex coast and could get away at most weekends, I left Widsith on her anchors in any creek I reached on a Sunday evening. At the end of the season I pulled up onto a convenient hard where only the spring tides would float her. At one time I kept her amid the debris of the Thames foreshore at East Greenwich - her planking suffered from that, one winter, but generally she withstood all knocks unharmed. More recently, I had a mooring on the Dee estuary where I left her all winter - some of the best sailing days are in December. There the ice floes scraped the barnacles off for me, but left the planking unscathed. Plywood could never safely have been subjected to such casual treatment.

There are disadvantages in an old boat of this type, of course - although sailing qualities depend on shape, not weight. Still, in light airs one just had to row to get anywhere unless one was content to travel at the speed of the tide.

The only other disadvantage really due to weight was her immobility once ashore. Trailing was out of the question with the kind of car I am ever likely to own, and to get her up or down the shore without mechanical aids called for the combined help of all the local populace.

Last year I thought of the attractions of a boat I could trail to coasts which I would never have time to reach under sail now that time is limited, to the weekends when provision can be made for the children, or when we can all get away together - it takes at least one adult to look after the children while the other sails the boat, if they come. I would have no need to leave a light boat in a strange place, uncertain when I would be able to return, and I would be able to fit her out at home in the garden. So last year I sold Widsith and bought Saefaru and a trailer. Saefaru is a Y.M. Junior, 13’6” x 5’ - very similar in length and beam to Widsith. A Junior is supposed to weigh 3 cwt., though the railways made it 5 cwt. - not a racing cockleshell, which would not be at all my sort of boat. She is Bermudian rigged, but this can be altered, and my preference for gunter remains. She has a heavy plate, which I never lower completely.

The bother of trailing, launching, hauling out, reloading on the trailer, and trailing all the way home again (5 hours for 100 miles when the speed limit was 30) has to be set against the fact that we did get to the Menai Straits, which we could not do from the Dee in the week we chose for our cruise in my father’s 18 footer last year. This year a family camping holiday by Windermere is hoped for, to introduce the 5 and 3 year olds to sailing in non-tidal waters, which would really suit them better than the coast at present. This again is only possible with the lighter boat.

Sailing Saefaru is, of course, much more interesting in light airs than sailing Widsith was - although one has to go with rather than against the tides that run in west coast estuaries, whatever the boat. I can still reef when single-handed, tacking becomes hard work, and I never used the full 100 sq. ft. of sail last summer. With the storm jib she has 90 sq. ft. which is plenty for cruising. But I do not (so far, at least) feel the same confidence in undertaking open coastal passages single-handed. I feel that not much wind would have to get up for me to find my 7½ stone inadequate to sit the boat up and get anywhere against a rough sea. Neither would I take the children out in anything but the lightest winds - I must admit that it alarmed me to see the list she took when my 19 stone husband sat on the thwart to one side of the centreplate case. Still, we must try with the gear out of her this year to see just how much it would take to capsize her. She has a good freeboard, and I think has more stability than my heavy-boat-trained reactions are apt to imagine. With a crew of two I have little doubt that she would comfortably accomplish all the coastal trips I did in Widsith, and a good deal faster. What I shall not be able to do is to land on a rough shore without first making sure that the bottom has no hidden boulders, or to leave her unattended at anchor in a drying creek, unless I am sure only soft mud lies under her keel. Greater respect must be paid to 5/16 inch plywood than to planking.

The only conclusion I can reach is that, within wide limits, the choice of boat depends on personal preference. It is because I like my dinghy cruising to be easy-going, with emphasis on exploring places rather than on exciting sailing, that I still prefer a heavier boat.