Jack Holt specifically designed the Mirror Sixteen as a camping boat and it has a pram hood and a boom tent. The pram hood is erected in about ten seconds whereas the boom tent requires removal of the sail and erection of the tent taking about ten minutes. My last Sixteen bit the dust or flooded her tanks in ’97 (See Bulletin 158) and I eventually replaced her with a Flying Dutchman. The Dutchman has a large cockpit with a double floor, it is light and the main is the same size as the Sixteen’s, or a Wayfarer’s, and the jib is easily rolled away. It is also easy to sail, given the strength to haul in a 90 sq ft jib, and old ones are incredibly cheap for the amount of boat and gear. My ideal tent was the pram hood but I could see no reasonable way of organising one because the mast is stepped on the floor rather than the deck. I was resigning myself to some sort of boom tent, probably using a pair of oars to provide a cottage section rather than a simple A.

I have always considered my boats dual purpose, they are rigged for both racing and cruising with the minimum interference with performance potential to allow camping. I have sailed up to 60 miles to a regatta (Putney to Sheerness), camped on the boat, removed the camping gear, raced it and sailed home. This is my objective in this case as well. I need a tent which is easily used and easily removed and requires a minimum of modifications to the boat.

Elizabeth Baker’s article in Bulletin 165 showed a tent based on a fishing umbrella and I started rethinking along these lines. Disadvantages would be that the umbrella would need to be split for the mast and an umbrella would have to be erected first and fastened down after which could be hectic in a breeze. So back to the drawing board and reconsider the pram tent.

For storage the hood would require flexible hoops rather than the rigid aluminium ones of the Sixteen. How about a pram hood with flexible hoops and a flat canvas apron in front of the hood to cover the first nine inches of cockpit shaped around the mast and shrouds. At first I thought that the hoops would need folding for storage i.e. the hoops would require hinges or joints at mid length but the fore-deck length of the Dutchman is enormous and gives space for 9’ poles. I investigated sources of suitable poles, camping shops sell spare sectional fibreglass rod poles but the local chandler sells a wide range of fibreglass sail battens. I eventually selected the Laser section batten, which comes in 4.15 m lengths. I scarf jointed the offcuts of two 2.7m lengths to make the third.

The next thing to consider was fixing. The Dutchman has very wide gunwales and I considered making fibreglass hooks to grip them to avoid any modification to the boat but eventually decided that two holes and eight small under gunwale hooks would be acceptable. The ends of the poles are bolted to small pieces of fibreglass reinforced plywood together with two pegs which are pared down offcuts from the hoops. These fit through holes on the side decks to locate the ends of the poles. The batten material is very strong longitudinally but is easily split so the scarf joint and the hinge points of the hoops and pegs are reinforced with fibreglass tape.

The tent will cover the whole of the cockpit to keep rain out of the helmsman’s part as well, because this area does not have a double floor. Access will be through a zip up doorway which can be rolled back with the roll above the tent to direct most rain away from the doorway. I will also arrange extra ties to allow the tent to be rolled further back as I have fond memories of lying in the protection of the Sixteen’s cuddy gazing up at the stars. The hood will be permanently on the hoops.

Erection will start by unclipping the lower shrouds, inserting one peg into the deck hole, bending the three battens with the hood already on them so that the second peg can be inserted, clip the apron to the gunwale and form the boots around the mast and shrouds, raise hood and clip out the rear to hold it in the erect position.

Note that the tent has to slide in along the hoops as they straighten as the length along the fabric midway between the hoops is less than at the hoops themselves.

I hope the boom will fit under the foredeck otherwise it will have to go on the side decks on suitable padding.