The pastime which Mr Lewis has described in The Yachting Monthly for March 1913 as ‘dinghy cruising’ is a very unusual sport, and it is a pity that it has not more votaries. Very few men seem to have attempted it — I can only remember to have met with four boats, besides those to be mentioned in this article, making coast cruises, but the owners of all those boats agreed that it was very excellent sport. One man, I remember, thought a B Class Canoe a suitable craft for the purpose, but he did not make many converts to his opinion.

I would suggest that by entitling his article ‘Dinghy Cruising’, Mr Lewis suggests a restriction which it is not desirable to make. For such cruising the size of the boat used is limited only by the power of her crew to haul her up the beach with no other appliance than they can carry with them. If a man goes singlehanded, his strength limits him to a boat corresponding in weight to a 12’ or 13’ dinghy. Two men can handle a large dinghy or a small beach punt of 14’ or 15’. Three men could manage a 17’ punt or a 20’ gig, and so on. If the intention is to cruise in sheltered waters, say among the Essex creeks, where the boat has not to be hauled up, any sized boat is suitable. The volunteers from the President, for instance, now and again make a trip to Holehaven, or to the Medway in a whaler or a cutter. They are exponents of this branch of sport.

The cruising ground must, of course, depend on individual taste. Mr Lewis suggests that “the Thames Estuary is as good a district as we have”. My preference is all for the Channel where there is no mud. A clean beach of fine shingle makes an ideal camping ground; and, save for the extra labour it entails in hauling a boat up, sand is very good. As far as the actual sailing is concerned the short chop of the Thames Estuary is probably harder on a boat than the more regular sea of the Channel; and as to risk, it should be remembered that the Channel cruiser has a port in every bit of open beach, however small. In going round the North Foreland, for instance, he has Kingsgate at disposal; the cliffs of the South Foreland have a convenient gap at St Margaret’s Bay, and Beachy Head provides suitable resting places at Holywell and Birling Gap. Barring offshore puffs, such as are to be met with when the wind blows over the cliffs, there is little, if any, more risk to be encountered in the Channel than in the Thames. And even in the Thames, offshore puffs are to be found in the neighbourhood of Warden Point: a recent accident proved that. Days when sailing is impossible are, of course, more frequent in the Channel; but even there they come but rarely in the summer months, always excepting a year such as 1912.

Another advantage of this form of cruising is its extreme cheapness. A boat thoroughly fit for it can be built for £15, or bought in good condition for £10 or even less. Renewals of gear, repairs, and varnishing or painting run to shillings where in a small yacht pounds would be needed, and the amount of work which such a boat demands is so small that the owner can quite easily do it all himself.

Aztec was an elm-built boat which I bought second-hand for £6, including her gear, all of it in pretty good condition, and she lasted me for a dozen years, during which we sailed several hundred miles together. She was old when I bought her, but had been well kept up. She was a Cogie, a class of boat now obsolete, but formerly carried by the big decked Deal luggers which went piloting. In form she was very similar to the ordinary beach rowing punt to be seen in dozens during the summer months at Deal, Dover, Folkestone, and other places. She differed from them chiefly in being much closer timbered, and in having a rather smaller transom. She had always been fitted with a sail, and could be rowed randan fashion or pulled with two pairs of sculls. I added a 3” false keel to her and rigged her with main and mizzen standing lugs and a jib. The dimensions, etc, of the sails will be seen from the plan annexed. Thus rigged, she worked well, was very handy, and in moderate weather would go to windward of beach boats 4’ or 5’ longer than herself. She was light to row and easy to beach.

A moderate false keel does not make a boat bad to beach, especially if — as should be done — the bilge keels are doubled when the false keel is put on. On the other hand, a false keel protects her from many a stone which would otherwise go through her bottom; and when she is lying on the beach it saves her garboard from being split by ignorant people sitting on her gunwale. This is a malady to which beach boats are greatly subject.

Her dimensions were: length over-all, 15’ 4”; beam, 4’ 10”; width of transom, about 2’ 6”; draught about 15” aft; least freeboard, about 14”. She carried from 1 to 2 cwt of iron ballast, and all her gear was as simple as could well be. Her mainmast and long yard were each 12’ long so that they could easily be boated, and she had no standing rigging. Her halliards, carried to wooden cleats on the gunwale — Deal galley, fisherman and navy fashion — served to support the masts. Galley fashion she had two mainsails, the smaller equal to the bigger one double-reefed, and having a much shorter yard. Neither mainsail had a boom, but the big sail had a 5’ clue stick as otherwise it could not have been sheeted. It is a great convenience to have no boom, especially when carrying passengers. When running free the sail is boomed out with an oar which serves as boom and lazy guy in one. The mizzen had a boom, otherwise unnecessary, for convenience in running wing-and-wing. In running any distance the second mainsail was set as a spinnaker. The sail areas were: mizzen 25ft²; big mainsail 85ft²; small mainsail 60ft²; working jib 20ft²; reaching jib (seldom set as its use involved rigging out a bowsprit) 35ft².

Porpoise, also built of elm, belonged to my sailing partner, Hartrick. She began life as a big yacht’s sailing dinghy, and he bought her nearly new and kept her original sails in her. She was 14’ 2” long; 4’ 8” beam; drew about 8” with centreboard up and 3’ with it down; and her least freeboard was about 1’. Like Aztec she had very flat floors, but there the resemblance ended. She had less sheer, a less full bow, and a transom wider by quite 6”. Her iron centreboard was of the usual drop type, and she carried about the same weight of ballast as Aztec. She was, if anything, the heavier boat of the two. Her rig was a balance lug mainsail and small jib. Her mast, a 4” bamboo, had shrouds and could not be boated. Her boom and yard, also bamboo, were 12’ 6” and could not be boated easily. Her mast was 3’ 6” from the stem — i.e. a foot nearer than Aztec’s. She carried a second mainsail, but without a boom and only for use as a spinnaker. Her sails were: mainsail 105ft²; spinnaker 80ft²; jib 15ft². She was stiff under sail, but rather wet, and was an awkward boat to row.

I have been particular in describing these boats because they once sailed in company on a Channel cruise, which gave a good opportunity of comparing the fitness of the two types for that class of work. The cruise was made at short notice, with little addition to the boats’ ordinary gear. We took no long oars, and only three pads each — three, because it is easy to break one if it becomes necessary to jerk a boat’s head round in a lop.

The heaving-up gear carried consisted of six skids, three in each boat; a big tin of fat for greasing them; a tackle, and a beach anchor. This last is not a thing in everyday use, so it may be well to describe it. It is simply a stout bit of board with a rope pennant made fast to the middle of it. Ours was 3’ by 9” by 2” This is buried in the beach, a skid serving as a spade, till only the eye on the pennant shows. Three feet of 2½” rope will make a pennant. The standing block of the tackle is hooked to the eye, and the other block is Blackwall hitched to the end of the boat’s beach painter. When the tackle has been hove two blocks it is fleeted and the lower block hooked to the painter as near the stem of the boat as it will reach. Our tackle was two single 4” blocks with 10 to 12 fathoms of 1½” rope, the three-part block being on the painter. Thus, with a 5 fathom painter, by fleeting the tackle once, the boat was moved about 10 fathoms, which is as far as it was generally necessary to haul her by this means. The only severe pull up a beach is on the short steep bit near high-water mark, usually called the ‘bank’. On the flat part of a beach two men can pull a 14’ boat on skids up by hand even with her gear in.

The household requisites were simple. The food, with the plates etc, was carried in a tin box of the kind that servant girls use. This box fitted closely under the Aztec’s midship thwart and was watertight. We took no tinned stuff, and bought fresh meat and fish when we landed near enough to civilisation. There was a big bag of potatoes, which we had at breakfast and dinner every day. Lunch we had afloat. There is usually some sort of driftwood to be picked up along shore, so we decided to take no cooking stove. The Primus wasn’t invented then, and if it had been, I don’t think we would have taken one. Instead, we put in a small sack of ends of deals, to be on the safe side, and a hatchet. It proved to be as well that we did carry firewood, as we picked up very little during the cruise. There was also some paraffin for the hurricane lamp and to assist a coy fire. Water, whisky for medical comforts, a shore-going suit, and a blanket apiece. I think that exhausts the list of gear. Of course we had a few oddments of boatswain’s stores, and a lead tingle or two with some copper tacks and a hammer, in case we should knock a hole in a boat in beaching her. Owing to the weight of the extra gear we carried no ballast.

These details are given because the success of such a trip depends on having all reasonable wants supplied. We used everything we took with us, save the lead patches, and we wanted nothing that we had not got.

We decided that in ordinary weather and on most courses one boat was as good as the other, but that at the last push Aztec was the better seaboat, and that for coast cruising the beach punt is more suitable than the dinghy type. Turning to windward the centreboard boat, of course, has an advantage, but the boat with even 3” of false keel does a great deal better than those who have not tried her would suppose.

For myself, if ever I get away again from yachts with decks on them and cabins in them, I shall go coast cruising in a boat as much like Aztec in every particular as I can find. The only addition I would make would be a dagger-plate centreboard, which on a beach is preferable to a drop-plate because it does not get jammed in the trunk with stones.