I don’t know if any other members would be interested in my idea for raising and lowering sails from the cockpit if the boat has a small cabin. I have used this method for two seasons now and am pleased with it.

The cabin is about 9” away from the mast (if the mast were on top of the cabin it would have been easier). So I built a small oak fife rail 7” high around the mast and through this I bolted two ring bolts each side of the mast. Pulleys are fixed to these by shackles and the halliards and topping lifts pass through to large cleats on the after end of the cabin. I find it works very well, especially when motoring out of crowded Mersea when it’s rough I can raise the sails without leaving the cockpit. Also when dropping the hook (which I do by tossing it overboard from the fore-deck with an oar from the cockpit), it saves me standing on deck while the sails are flapping about.

I enjoy the bulletins a great deal but (I hope I won’t get shot for saying this) would it not be possible to print some cruises undertaken in outboard driven dinghies — not speedboats or runabouts, but small clinker dinghies driven by such engines as the Seagull? I like sailing but I’m sure there must be many people who have had interesting weekends in an outboard boat. I used to until I could afford a sailing boat. Yours faithfully, A. J. Tucker