Giving advice on choosing a boat is as difficult as advising on a choice of spouse as the choice is prejudiced by the chooser's character and experience - to use a modem idiom, it is largely a subjective choice. From the opposite viewpoint, obtaining unbiased advice has similar pitfalls. Accordingly I should make my position plain. I define a cruising dinghy as a small open or partly decked boat in which a small number of people can sail about from place to place for pleasure. I also maintain that whilst when racing it is quite acceptable to take risks with the fabric of the boat and comfort, even health of the crew, this is not the case when `cruising'. The basic tenet of seamanship should apply - the avoidance of unnecessary risk.

I therefore make no apology for stating categorically, that in choosing a cruising dinghy, for our so-called temperate seas, you have to be reasonably certain that in your hands, in the waters you intend to frequent and for the duration of the proposed trip, that dinghy will not capsize. I am concerned with anything which can reasonably be described as a dinghy although I am aware our members favour anything from windsurfers to inflatable catamarans. Those of some experience can make up their own minds about their next boat based on their own hard-won knowledge.

No small boat has yet been built that cannot be turned over by some combination of wind and sea. Any dinghy, which by definition is undecked to a greater or lesser degree, is at the bottom of the league where seaworthiness is concerned. You can prepare a boat to survive strong winds, but the action of waves is a very different proposition. This means that you have to be more demanding in your choice of craft the larger the area of water you sail on. The capsize drill that works so well when accompanied by instructor and rescue boat still works but with greater difficulty in a rough sea, but the water that floods the bottom of the boat reduces its stability so that the action of the waves can turn you over again, and again. Young or competent crews in certain conditions can get a racing dinghy sailing again sufficiently well to clear the craft of water with the gear such craft have to help them, transom flaps and self bailers. When your boat is laden with extra gear it is another matter.

Of course you will not set out when the weather forecast is bad and you will always plan a bolt hole to leeward to which you can escape, you may have a string of qualifications to tell the world how well you can manage your craft, but your concentration cannot be relied upon, nor your fitness even if you're an exercise freak. You will need a dinghy that will do its bit towards looking after the both of you. Your dinghy may be guaranteed not to sink, but it won't save your life if it gives neither shelter nor the ability to sail to safety. A favourite saying is that the boat can stand more than its crew - where dinghies are concerned this statement is meaningless as neither can survive without the other. If you can keep your boat upright you can bail it out, make repairs, row it, fabricate a jury rig, find your food - if you accept capsizes as a fact of life you have a strike against you for a start. The acknowledgement of these matters is what I call a `positive' attitude to safety. Carrying buoyancy, life jackets, flares and an emergency radio and relying on the rescue services, I call `passive' safety.

Dinghies nowadays can be roughly grouped. These are not clear cut divisions in that they merge a little but are reasonably easy to separate.

1. Pure Racing Machines - these are easy to recognise and include classes such as Fireball, International 14, Merlin Rocket, Finn, 5o5, Moth etc. They have become so specialised that it is unlikely that anyone uninterested in racing would consider them for any other purpose. There is no reason why a skilled athlete should not cross the Channel in one, and plenty have, but they lose their lively charm when loaded with cruising gear. Nevertheless, I feel that outclassed or unfashionable designs are so often on the market at giveaway prices that it should be possible to modify them into something useful - if only to save the waste of good workmanship. I have spent hours though, looking at the hulls of Flying Fifteens, Jollyboats, old National 12's, Finns and others without inspiration dawning; hull shape, unalterable internal structure or just leaky old age have sent me sorrowfully away. Those more resolute than I can try the `Under £425' column in Yachts and Yachting.

2. Sports Dinghy/General Purpose/One Design Family Racing; call it what you will - a type of dinghy that owes much to the development of marine plywood for its growth since the war. It is true that similar craft of traditional construction flourished in the thirties, but the numbers of such craft are nothing compared with that of the plywood generation - Enterprise, GP 14, Leader, OK, Wayfarer, etc. The dinghy designers' ambition was to get their creation adopted as a racing class by as many sailing clubs as possible, then the royalties would flow in; hence the accent on bermudan rig and light weight for planing ability. Most of these designs survived the GRP revolution virtually unchanged when new designs were added. In general one can say that they are faster than their prewar counterparts, but they are also easier to capsize. Clinker construction proved the cheapest of traditional methods and the way the material is used also constrained the design towards a stable shape.

The appearance of the new generation tends to be of a pattern. While this is due in some part to their almost universal adoption of the bermudan rig, the main reason is their hull shape; to obtain performance they were designed with little or no sheer (curved up ends) and low freeboard to reduce aerodynamic drag: foredecks became well-nigh essential. Although some are more stable than others, those who choose them for single handed use should hesitate before selecting any over, say, 12 feet. They were designed to be sailed by a crew of two and to get the pleasure from the performance of which they are capable requires more hiking weight than one person of reasonable girth can supply. If one is content with less performance, then one can reef at a lower wind speed than would otherwise be required. Nevertheless the long mast of the bermudan rig with its great leverage and windage remains, and even by itself can form a powerful capsizing force with only one person to hold the boat up. Many people find the type gives them everything they require; reasonable safety due to their added buoyancy, reasonable stowage space after modification and responsive behaviour. A big advantage of the type is that early plywood versions are cheap to obtain. However my postbag is full of letters from those who have bought these in 14 feet and larger versions for single handed use, and want to make them less demanding.

In order to meet my terms regarding capsizing one should only choose this type for cruising if one has gained experience first. The best possible apprenticeship is a season or two's club racing, on tidal waters if possible. I would hope that any racing owner of some experience would feel a complete fool if he tipped his boat over when not racing. The reefing arrangements on these boats generally leave much to be desired in standard form, as one should be able to reef when at sea being tossed about by waves. Normally all you get is the ability to roll the sail round the boom and stick the squared gooseneck on again. This generally produces a poorly setting sail and a drooping boom if more than a little canvas is rolled up, apart from its unhandiness in a tippy boat and/or singlehanded. Another problem with them is that owners seem unwilling to modify them sufficiently to be comfortable for cruising in case it takes them out of class for racing and reduces their value.

These dinghies do point the way towards a powerful cruiser however. The power of the sails has two main elements, heeling and drive. The reason we reef is that as the wind increases both elements increase also until the boat can't stay upright. Ballast on the centreline is efficient at bringing the boat upright after being knocked down. However we would have to use a lot more central ballast weight, more than is acceptable in a dinghy which we want to keep buoyant, to resist normal heeling than weight moved to the side of the boat. Hence the advantage of moveable crew to `sit the boat up' or `hike'; a cruising dinghy can use this shifting ballast for its own advantage. One of the reasons the Sports type of dinghy is attractive is that its light weight makes it easy to handle ashore. Unfortunately this is also the reason for its poor natural stability. A moment's thought will show that, other things being equal, a heavy hull will be more stable than a light one as in order for the wind to heel a boat it has to lift a proportion of its weight. If we decide that planing is no longer required we can accept a higher hull displacement. We can also redesign the hull to make it more suitable for cruising in other ways, but I will continue that discussion in the second part of this article. I will also elaborate on possible configurations which are both light and seaworthy.

The Ideal Cruising Dinghy To be continued……..