Dear Joan,

I was very pleased to receive your letter, and to know that you are interested in our activities in New Zealand. Our boat is 14' long 5'8" beam and carries 160 sq.ft. of sail. The centre plate is steel weighing 54 lbs. We have a sailing cover that makes fast to hooks along the edge of the coaming, and at sea we always use this; only using a space for our knees. As there are usually three of us - Dad, my brother Alistair aged 16 and myself aged 18 there isn't much room living aboard, so we have not as yet any buoyancy in the boat. We always sleep aboard rather than tent ashore, because the coastline of the places we visit is rather steep, and choosing a camping site would be very difficult. Most of the places we visit are small bays with a stream that has built a natural lagoon with a sand bar across the entrance, and thick bush to the waters edge. We have a primus stove for cooking, which lives in a wooden box. This box forms the cook's seat when preparing a meal. Our cruising is nearly always done during the day time as in the summer there is usually very little wind at night. As my occupation is sailmaking the boat has a good suit of sails consisting of main, genoa, jib, working jib, storm jib, plus large and small spinnakers. The spinnakers are necessary as we get a lot of light weather.

We have just finished a most successful Easter cruise in which we did all our sailing at night, of which I will tell you in my next letter.

Malcolm Dickson