This is not strictly true because every boat has a low point in which debris collects, but my boat does very well without the dampness associated with these areas by having a perfectly flat bottom.

I live in a terraced house with no rear access and a minute front garden. Boat owning means either storing for 49 weeks in a year which I am not prepared to finance, or, do as I have done: use a collapsible boat. My choice has been an inflatable dinghy which has a flat sheet base and a timber floor. The model I have is a Campari Grand Petit 5 man which has plenty of fixing points around the edge and a relatively large cuddy-type area at the front; useful for storing essential camping equipment. Collapsed, the boat takes up the space of an average sized suitcase which is easily stored in the loft.

Campari boats are not built to the same exacting standards as other inflatable boats but for my use, I have found it perfectly strong and reliable having performed over 300 miles on the inland waterways of England and Wales. The boat is 11’ 4” in length and has been simply adapted to a cruising vessel by the addition of some supports fore and aft, a ridge pole, and a big groundsheet as a tent cover. Not being a devotee of the smell and noise of the internal combustion engine, my motive power has been 2 oarspower, and recently, sail, but more about that aspect later.

Having no conventional bilges, it is essential for me to keep the boat’s inside dry. To date I have been successful and have yet to wake on a misty morning to find the sleeping bag floating on a water layer. Sleeping is very comfortable as the bed is always level and movement is gently cushioned by the supporting water and must be the nearest thing to the waterbed. I have experienced mist at 5 a.m. on the calmest of summer mornings and have found some delightful spots to moor in. Breakfast on the towpath can be sheer delight and has often produced envious noises from people hurrying to work.

Rowing is quite satisfactory as a method of propulsion, but inflatables have not any ‘lines’ to speak of and just stop dead when rowing ceases. Nevertheless an easy 6 miles a day could be achieved permitting plenty of time for sightseeing, wining and dining. Some frustration at always facing backwards could be relieved by holding an open umbrella up when a following wind was with me but that for long periods created arm ache.

Last year I decided to convert the boat to sail and this in itself produced problems — no keel, no rigid support for a mast, no rudder. Rudder was solved by utilising the transom board provided.

Keel was solved by attaching lee-boards to a wooden frame fixed to the floor, but the mast was a different matter. A mast had to meet stringent design criteria:

1. It must be capable of being lowered to pass beneath canal bridges — (tabernacle?)

2. If it could double up as a ridge pole for the tent, so much the better.

3. It must be capable of being stored in the loft.

4. It must be able to be fitted to the boat and the floor without unduly stressing either.

An 11’ length of alloy mast was given to me by a colleague and quickly found to be too heavy to contemplate, whilst constructing a tabernacle on the supports for the leeboards seemed a dauntless task. Eventually a lateen rig was decided upon, as two strong fixing points at the bows were available and a device was erected on the leeboard supports so that the yard could hang on a lateral bar and be unhooked when headroom restrictions dictated. As the yard or spar I used 5 No. aerial mast sections from Foulkes and this assisted greatly in storage problems in as much as the screwed sections meant I could vary the sail design as dismantle easily. The first sail was of insufficient size for the boat and would not permit the boat to sail into the wind, even though its performance to windward was satisfactory despite problems with bending leeboards.

I hope to improve the design this winter by increasing the elevation of the yard and consequently the sail area but cannot find any documentation on this type of rig, Arab dhows, or similar vessels, and any knowledge from other members would be most welcome. One snag I can foresee is that a larger sail will increase speed which in turn will induce waves and might result in water in the non-existent bilges! I don’t expect to find the mythical perfect boat but will search in the belief that it may be better to travel than arrive or stay at home.