Dinghy cruising still goes on, and in this article there is a brief description of some of the more interesting aspects of one I recently undertook. I own a Drascombe Lugger, which, for those who do not know, is a 19 foot open dinghy rigged with a main and mizzen mast, and a completely open cockpit. I cruised with four of my children, aged 17, 15, 13 and 11, and we took with us as a tender one of the children’s dinghy, a Poole A.B., which is an 8 foot fibreglass pram sailing dinghy.

The principles we worked on were very simple: we slept on board under canvas, but we always moored in a marina. This had the advantage of access to hot water, showers, food, etc. and equally meant that the children could get off easily and exercise their legs. We did not attempt to cook, partly because previous experience had led me to believe that cooking in an open boat with large numbers on it could be dangerous, as the boat tips so easily with movement of people. We had a cold breakfast and cold lunch, both on board, but then went ashore in the evening for a good, hot dinner.

During the course of the week we sailed from Poole to Lymington, on to Beaulieu, where we stayed 24 hours looking at Beaulieu Abbey and the Motor Museum, from there to Gosport, where we had a look at HMS Victory, from there to Cowes, and up the River Medina, where we paid a visit to Newport, from there to Lymington again, and then back to Poole. All the marinas supplied satisfactory facilities, the Wight Marina being particularly popular with the older children because of the discotheque.

During the course of the week’s cruise, which incidentally was not the first we had done, we learnt some new lessons. On occasions, we towed the Poole A.B., particularly if we were motoring against the wind, and we found it tended to take a certain amount of spray and had to be baled out from time to time. Experience showed that it was very much easier to bale it out if we just lay still on the water than if we tried to keep moving while the boat was being baled out. We did not suffer at all from seasickness whatever the weather, except after one night when the children did not get enough sleep, because we had to have a very early start. It was quite clear that the children’s tiredness and lack of time for a proper breakfast did have a considerable effect on them. We had a certain amount of fog, and learnt to rely on the compass in conditions where nothing could be seen, and where our sense of direction was completely lost. It is a little frightening at first, until one has got complete confidence in the accuracy of the compass. Finally, we learnt to treat with great respect the sea conditions at Hurst Point, the entrance to the Solent. On sailing over to Lymington, we saw a calm sea turn into violent overfalls within five minutes and return to calm a quarter of an hour later, at a time when the tidetables showed no change of tide (if any expert could explain this, I would be most grateful — it was very frightening at the time).

The boat cover was of canvas designed by myself. We merely tied a line from the stem to the main mast, to the mizzen mast, to the transom, and slung the cover, which was in three pieces, over it, and then secured it and drew it tight under the boat. We slept with two on the bottom boards on lilos, the other three (or four, because an extra child joined us for one night) on the side benches, two towards the bows and two towards the stern. On the side benches, they slept with no padding of any sort other than that supplied by their sleeping bags. In spite of somewhat rough conditions, we all slept extremely well. We tried to wash clothes every day, and, having taken the tent cover down, used the line for drying the clothes out. We even on occasions proceeded on our way on the first part of a journey like this, although this aroused a certain amount of comment!

Taking a second dinghy with us had advantages and disadvantages. It meant that, in normal conditions, we were sailing two boats, so most people got tricks at a tiller reasonably often; and it also meant that once we moored in the evening, the children could go off and sail or row the boat to their heart’s content, and it saw considerable use in this way. On the other hand, when it got very rough it became too rough to leave a child sailing solo in the small dinghy. (We found that, even reefed down, the A.B. was too much to handle in a force 5 or over.) It was a nuisance having to tow it, partly because we sometimes had to adjust our speed, and also because we did have to bale it out from time to time. On balance, I think I would take one again, but it does have a slight restricting effect.

The cruise as a whole was a great success. We were reasonably lucky with the weather, we had some very good sailing, and it made a complete change from normal life. The Drascombe Lugger is very suitable for these purposes, with its large cockpit and its seaworthy qualities. We were perhaps lucky in our choice of area, as the Solent is well equipped with marinas, but I believe we would have done it even without the marinas.

I hope you will have found this of interest, and if anybody likes to get in touch with me on any points of detail, I would be very happy to give them any help I can.