Looking back on a season severely restricted by unsettled weather, I consider again the virtues of the very light boat. I am not likely to give up the comfort and stable security of my clinker hull, but I do wonder whether there were days this year on which for instance John Gray in his Mirror dinghy would have snatched a few hours of moderate weather and fair tide, knowing that he could lift his boat ashore. I could not risk being caught for a whole unfavourable tide by a shift to an onshore force 6 in an exposed place. Some use boat rollers to get heavier boats ashore on exposed beaches. I have never felt this feasible single-handed, but it would be interesting to hear from members who have used rollers while cruising.

Although dinghy cruising must still be one of the least expensive part time activities, there are one or two unavoidably expensive items. At present I find that running a car to get to the boat is much the biggest of these, but next to it comes the bill for charts whenever a cruising area is visited. We could help each other here. Hugh Clay has started the idea; he offers the loan of his charts of the Swedish and Norwegian coasts which he has visited. (Note that the cost of ferrying a boat over there is £40 return. It costs me £100 to trail to Scotland and back by car-mileage rates). It would be a good idea for any member who would like to borrow charts to advertise in the Bulletin. Older charts must be used with caution, but are far from useless. Allowing for this we must, between us, cover most of the British and adjacent coasts.

CHART LOAN Charts available as convenient:

Stromstad to Gothenburg ) Hugh Clay, Krugero to the Naze ) Magdalen College, Oxford

West Coast of Scotland and parts of Outer Hebrides ) North West Coast of England ) Isle of Man (not very recent) ) Joan Abrams Welsh coasts from Dee to Tenby ) 061-427-1191 Older charts of Essex, parts of Norfolk, Solent ) Devon and Dorset coasts )