Compared with Sloop-Rigged Dinghies

The 12’-6”(3.78m) Cormorant catboat has very different characteristics from the usual run of sloop-rigged dinghies and merits the attention that it has recently received in our Bulletin. May I add further salient points?

However may I first say how flattered I am that in my mid-seventies, Liz Baker quoted my sailing time as a fair comparison for the performance of her Cormorant. I thought I was doing quite well at my age just to get the Isle of Wight single-handed in a light sail-and-oar boat! (I can only do it by being heavily reefed in breezes over about 8 knots, so yes, I am slow getting to windward!). Lizzie’s article also included lurid titbits such as my boat being ‘sloshing’ with spray, and being ‘holed’ on a rock. She was mistaken. It wasn’t spray (the Leader is a wet boat but not that wet!), nor was it actually holed (the Leader is a robust boat, but the bailer-blank was forced). I am sorry to spoil such an entertaining account with the dull facts!

The Cormorant is powered by the large gaff mainsail of 88 sq.ft. (8.18 square metres) on wooden spars, and Liz rightly recommends that extra reef-points be added to give 50% reefing. Even so, wouldn’t this reefed mainsail of 44 sq.ft. on wooden gaff spars be hard to manage running before a strong breeze in bumpy seas (as are quite commonly experienced returning from our Solent rallies)? With a conventional sloop such as the Wayfarer, Wanderer or Leader one has the far safer option of running under jib only — say 20 sq. ft. (1.86 square metres) and still moving fast. Besides, a foresail lifts the bows, whereas a gaff (or Bermudan) mainsail tends to push the bows under. Tacking in crowded waters, a well-balanced sloop can sail under mainsail only with the jib roller-furled, so what advantage has the catboat?

The Cormorant no doubt meets the DCA stability recommendation with a huge margin, but does it meet our recommendation for capsize-recovery? The Wayfarer and 14 ft Leader can be righted and sailed on by a lightweight female, even from inversion, within a few seconds. The 14 ft Leader is admittedly on the tender side for cruising but nevertheless can take a crew-weight of about 24 stone (153 kg) — about 70% over the DCA minimum — on the gunwale without capsizing. Of course capsize avoidance is the priority requirement, but even with my clumsy single-handed sailing the only time I capsized my Leader was in the most extreme freak gust I have ever known, and I had the boat up and sailing within about ten seconds.

As an outboard motor would usually be carried on a boat such as the Cormorant, its transom main-sheeting presents a capsize hazard as, I understand, Liz found! Forward main-sheeting would be safer. (The Leader also has transom main-sheeting, but its light-air performance and easy-rowing qualities make a motor inessential).

The Cormorant’s heavy wooden mast and spars are an encumbrance. A sealed or foam-filled tubular alloy mast and spars would be lighter and therefore easier to rig and reef, more buoyant and resistant to inversion in capsize, and probably cheaper too. The Cormorant hull is a modem, practical design in modern materials, so why not have a modern functional rig to match? Gaff rig is fine on vintage boats or on close replicas, where one accepts the handling problems as part of the experience, but not, I would have thought, as the only sail on a modern single-handed dinghy. Admittedly the Leader would be a better cruising boat with about a foot off its mast and 3” off its boom, but even so the hinged mast enables it to ‘shoot’ low bridges under way, whereas the Cormorant’s heavy rig has to be dismantled. With a lighter alloy mast and spars it might be possible to lift the whole rig out as one unit, as with the Skipper 12.

It has been argued that the Cormorant would be better with a steel centreplate. Liz is right here; there would be little advantage on a hull with such a generous waterline beam, and there would also be the usual disadvantages of extra weight, the complication of lifting tackle, and of fallback in the event of inversion. Many very seaworthy boats have light wooden, GRP or alloy centreboards/plates. The Dockrell 17, with a somewhat similar hull-section to the Cormorant, has a light centreboard and has proved its seaworthiness in extensive cruises on the north-east coast. (Ask John Perry and Josephine Street!). Rather than add weight to the Cormorant’s already heavy hull, why not reduce the top weight? I would guess that every kilogram taken off the mast and spars would be worth more than five kilograms on the centreplate in terms of righting-moment.

My summary: The 12’-6” Cormorant provides more camping comfort and far more storage space than say the 14’ Leader, and its high stability would be reassuring for nervous sailors, but one would not expect good performance in breezes under 7 knots, so an outboard motor would normally be carried. Its considerable waterline beam would make it difficult if not impossible to right should it be capsized by a freak gust, and its rig would be difficult to manage in heavy weather. As Liz has admitted, my Leader is sailed in more boisterous conditions than her Cormorant, but of course this could be her prudence as much as the sloop’s heavy weather advantages.

An alternative single-sail rig

My first dinghy was a Whitingham and Mitchell light alloy 12 footer. Robust and beamy, it weighed about 200 lbs with alloy centreplate, despite its riveted external flanges was once raced on equal handicap with tuned-up Herons, coming second. I used it for camping‑cruising in the Medway Estuary and Chichester harbour, with self, wife, two sons and gear on board.

The most interesting feature however was its rig; an 80 sq ft balance-lug sail carried on a tubular alloy tripod, which allowed the sail to set properly on either tack. Releasing the halyard dropped the sail and spars immediately into the boat. Releasing a pin at the bows allowed the tripod to hinge back on to the stern. The balanced-lugsail provided some lift, rather than depressing the bows when running, as gaff-sails tend to on catboats. It was not a pretty boat because of its metal construction, but it had no vices. This balance lug/tripod mast principle could be applied to a suitable modern hull. The tubular tripod involved tube bending and a little welding, but I can envisage DIY approaches using straight anodised tubes with GRP bends and screwed-on fittings.