Dinghy cruising has not become a recognised or organised activity in Australia, but in Victoria, where I live, there are several sizable enclosed waterways suitable for it. Melbourne is on one of them, the 35 mile long Port Phillip Bay. The residential development which extends right around its eastern shore and a lack of sheltered destinations there do not make this part particularly inviting for cruising, but there are some quieter spots on the western side. Other potential cruising grounds are the tidal estuaries of Western Port and Port Albert-Corner Inlet, the beautiful and ever-popular Gippsland Lakes system, and, further away but less extensive, Lake Tyers and Mallacoota Inlet.

Map of Southern Victoria

My friend Mark Collier and I do not come form a yachting background, but we had gone on hiking and cycle-touring trips together and had hit upon the idea of cruising in a dinghy as another, and perhaps more exciting, way of reaching out-of-the-way places. Together with Sabine Apel, we took a Mirror dinghy out a number of day excursions, sailing on the bay or rowing up the Yarra River; at one time, we even contrived to sail it to a short overnight camp in the Gippsland Lakes, but with barely enough space to carry what we needed.

In 1996, we answered a newspaper advertisement for a clinker dinghy. What we were hoping to find was a boat that would be big enough for stowing camping equipment for a week's journey but light enough to lift onto the roof rack of a motor car, as we had been accustomed to doing with the Mirror. The dinghy that we saw answered the first requirement very satisfactorily, but failed miserably on the second. It was a 14' ex-naval or RNSA dinghy, and readers who are familiar with the class will know that it is heavily built for its length and has numerous metal fittings. With its bronze winch and galvanised steel centre plate and rudder plate, the boat must have weighed several hundred pounds.

To add to our doubts, some ‘minor carpentry’ was needed: one of the quarter knees and some sections of the thwarts and shear strakes were rotten, a number of timbers had cracked at the turn of the bilge, and some strakes had split. The owner, Ian Clark, a retired former Sea Scout commissioner, warned us that he did not think that it was the boat that we were looking for and was most surprised when we came back later with a boat builder and decided to buy it. By the time that we had repaired the dinghy and fitted it out, Mr. Clark had moved to Raymond Island on the Gippsland Lakes, and we visited him there (by boat) on each of our several trips to the region.

The RNSA dinghy evolved in the 1920's from the Island class dinghy but was built more strongly and fitted with lifting eyes to make it better suited for use at sea. It was carried on naval vessels as a training craft and general ship's boat, and was also used by naval colleges and cadet units. The dinghies were a numerous class in the navies of the Commonwealth until they were superseded by GRP vessels such as the Bosun and the Corsair in about 1970. Not many appear to have survived in this part of the world. I know of a couple in museums and have been told that some have retained by Naval Cadet units in Tasmania, but I have yet to see one on the water or in private hands. I should be interested to hear from any member who has one and has used one for cruising.

Ours is numbered RN 310 and was built in 1953 at the Garden I. Naval Dockyard in Sydney, but we do not know to what ship or facility she was assigned. The painted disk mounted on each bow would once have borne the crest of the unit, but the crests have long disappeared.

The 14' dinghy is rigged as a gunter sloop and is provided with a roller reefing mainsail and two headsails, the smaller of which may be reefed. The original sails would have been sewn from Egyptian cotton, but ours are synthetic ones that were made up for Mr. Clark. The vessel has a gently rounded bottom and plenty of freeboard. Her weight and shape do not make her a fast sailer, but she handles well in a fresh breeze and has excellent initial stability. One appreciates this when pouring a mug of tea, plotting a fix on the main thwart, or standing on the for'ard gunwale to take a photograph.

Under the supervision of the above-mentioned boat builder, a Mr. Tom Whitfield of Mordialloc, we made a pair of 9' spoon bladed oars, which are very comfortable to pull; we also have a cheap 8' pair, which we occasionally take as spares. The boat has two rowing thwarts, but the for'ard position is not very usable when the vessel is rigged because the mast and mast thwart (which is level with the gunwales) are directly behind the oarsman; in naval use, the dinghy was designed to be either sailed or pulled, but not both on the same outing, and it is pretty certain that its use as a cruising vessel was never contemplated. With two in the boat, we find it easier for one to pull while the other steers than for both to pull double banked; in this way we can keep up a steady 2 knots under most conditions. We invariably use stretchers for rowing and have found these a great convenience on river passages, when we have sometimes needed to pull (in turns) for several hours.

The wire standing parts of the mainsail halliards lead over sheaves slotted in the mast, the peak halliard to a wire jackstay on the gaff. Because the gaff often lies away from midships when being raised or lowered, the halliard has cut a notch in the slot, or in our case, the brass sleave which Mr. Clark fitted over the mast to strengthen it; we shall one day need to rig an external block to overcome this problem. The halliard wires occasionally serve other purposes. When not in use, the spars and mainsail are lashed together and seated in a boom crutch. For rowing, this gear gets in the way, so we detach the throat from the gooseneck and send it up on the halliard. In a strong breeze, when the mainsail must likewise be stowed, we can still sail with the headsail, but not beat to windward; to do the latter, we have found it best to set the storm headsail for'ard and the large headsail as a trysail. The head of the trysail is attached to the peak halliard, and the luff is clipped to the throat halliard, which is bowsed down as a jackstay. The rig feels very safe when conditions are brisk, but the boom crutch used to get in the way when we wanted to put the helm to starboard to go about; we solved this problem later by attaching a second pair of brackets beside the first.

The boat came with four copper buoyancy tanks mounted on the sides; these were sufficient to balance the weight of the metal fittings in the boat but not necessarily cruising gear as well. To provide the extra buoyancy that we thought required, we made some larger GRP ones to replace the after pair under the side benches, and we strapped one of the original tanks under the stern thwart. We also made a tank to replace the large triangular one that should have been in the bows. In order too prevent the for'ard tank from being damaged; we attached a very useful bow seat on the risers above it. We tested the efficacy of these preparations by rowing the dinghy to a quiet backwater where proceeded to swamp it; we have yet to repeat this experiment with the boat rigged and in a sea.

Plan of RN 310

It is worth mentioning the arrangements that we made for stowing gear. Tents, sleeping mats, and sleeping bags are stowed in canvas sausage bags and are secured under the side benches with fish netting. Clothes, personal items, and some food are stowed in large duffle bags held firmly against the sides amidships with netting, which is secured to timbers on the bottom and by spring clips to ties on the risers. Keeping things dry is always a problem. Up until the end of last year, the items in the bags were wrapped in plastic bags to keep them dry and in the tenuous hope they would provide sufficient lateral buoyancy for long enough so that the boat could be righted and bailed out in the event of a capsize. Not being very sure about this, we bought a pair of rubberised canvas screw-lid rafting bags for the gear under the side benches and some waterproof roll-top bags for the gear in the duffle bags.

At one time, we started making a pair of specially shaped waterproof plywood lockers to attach between the thwarts amidships, but the shapes turned out to be awkward to make and not as capacious or as flexible as the duffle bags, so we have continued using the latter for the time being. Tools and most of the food are now kept in 30 litre plastic drums wedged under the mast thwart. A plan of these arrangements is shown in the figure, but it does not give an impression of the jumble of rope and sail bags, fenders, life jackets, etc., which are wedged in wherever they will fit, mostly under the mast thwart. Water is stored in up to eight 5-litre plastic cream bottles either there or where required for the trim of the vessel. Binoculars, compasses, etc., sit between the thwart knees, attached to lanyards, and other frequently used items, such as hot water flasks and tea mugs are stowed in a narrow duffle bag tied in behind the stern thwart. We generally manage to keep the stern sheets free of clutter and sufficient space amidships clear for bailing; but often we wish that we had space and lockers to stow everything securely!

Because there is more public land and less development along inland waterways in this country than in Britain, and possibly because tidal ranges are smaller (6' along the Victorian coast, 2' in the almost landlocked Port Phillip, and a few inches in the Gippsland Lakes), we have always been able to camp ashore. In sheltered waters, one can often just tie up to a bank or anchor next to a beach. But, with a boat that is almost impossible to move when stranded, it is always worth arranging the lines so that the vessel shall be afloat when one wants to leave the next morning (or after a long lunch break ashore). Having two anchors has been very useful for this purpose. We carry two 6 lb. anchors, a fisherman's and a Danforth, each with some chain and 50 m of warp; these have served us adequately, but a heavier main anchor would be better. On recent trips, I have also been made a point of bringing several 4'x6'' boards to use as skids in case we should ever need to beach the boat. We have not had to do this yet, but I once had to use the boards to lever the boat off the mud after the wind had swept several inches of water out of a long shallow arm of the Gippsland Lakes overnight.

We have found these boards (and the stretcher boards) more routinely useful laid on the thwarts and side benches (which are rather narrow) to make them more comfortable, or wedged under the duffle bags to keep them drier when water is sloshing about in the bilge. The boat is old and rather leaky, and the bottom boards lie directly on the timbers, so it is not possible to sleep in the waist overnight without getting wet. However, I can see the wisdom of making a boom tent and devising some sort of arrangement for supporting ourselves in a recumbent position at thwart level so that we could sleep off shore if we needed to. A couple of times we have rigged a tarpaulin over the boom to make it comfortable for rowing in the rain, but the only time that I have actually slept in the boat at night was one time when we had the vessel riding to a gentle offshore breeze to keep her off a rocky beach and I was doing an ‘anchor watch’ wrapped up in a tarpaulin.