‘Loch Broom Post Boat’ or just ‘Post Boat’ appears 5 times in the list of DCA members and so the design is a fairly uncommon choice of boat for cruising. The name always generates interest and so an explanation in these pages might be of value. Post Boats are GRP replicas of the original 14’ wooden boat, with lugsail, jib and bowsprit and a long but relatively shallow keel supplemented by a pair of bilge runners. Tim Delaney and I bought Marian in 2001 and have sailed and camped in her fairly widely since then and have found her a roomy and uncomplicated sail. We have identified a few handling problems and these interesting peculiarities I shall describe shortly, after a bit of history and some mystery.

I believe Marian is a Loch Broom Post Boat (LBPB), a craft introduced by Bill Bailiff of Character Boats at Overton on the Lune estuary some time in the 70s or 80s. This is the same yard that introduced the Lune Pilot, Longboat and Whammel. All of the boats were developed using the same technique — that of taking a mould from the original wooden hull and making a GRP replica in the mould. Through Bill Bailiff, Marian was given life from the wooden original which was —

“a boat he found lying on the foreshore of Loch Broom which had been built 200 years earlier as a crofter’s boat to ferry seaweed and sheep. Nearly 100 years ago she was used by ‘Duncan the Post’ McLelland to deliver mail to the loch side crofts. When a road was built round the loch she was retired but was still sailed by the family until 30 years ago” (quoted from ‘With One Pair of Hands’ published in Practical Boat Owner No. 207, March 1984)

The picture above shows the original hull. Who wouldn’t want a boat with all that Gaelic romance behind her? Beautiful lines too, as a result of the flair arising from her beaminess and shallow draft which helps her to steer straight and easily when rowed but to ‘stiffen up’ when she heels under sail. In the article in Practical Boat Owner of March 1984, Bill said “If you started from scratch with a computer you would be lucky to finish up with a hull like that, based as it is on hundreds of years of experience.” Another article ‘The Ullapool Post Boat’ by Hamish Barber in Model Shipwright Anthology (Issue 73 of 1991) has diagrams showing the probable original rig and interior layout. There is now a new boat based on the original hull called the 14’ 6” Post Boat, built by Character Boats at Lytham St Annes, but more of that later too.

Until 2001 Marian had been kept as a family boat for use on Oulton Broad and its associated waters, getting fewer and fewer outings in recent years as the vendor’s grandchildren grew up. She had plenty of room for sheep so why not fill her with grandchildren? With insufficient height to sail really well around the reed-bed enclosed and tidal Norfolk Broads, Marian was just about yearning to go to sea! The previous owner remembered details of the original, purchase, particularly that she was new when bought in about 1985 from a student at the International Boatbuilding Training College on Lake Lothing in Oulton Broad. Like Bill’s boats, Marian has no maker’s plate. Was Bill associated with the College? Who built her?

Table 1. Comparison of dimensions LBPB LBPB Marian Ch.Boats brochure

Length of hull plus 30” of bowsprit 17’ 0” 17’ 0” LOA 14’ 0” 14’0” LWL (excl. 12” rudder) 12’8” 12’8” Beam 6’ 1” 6’ 0” Draught 20” 20” Sail areas Mainsail 88.5 ft² 89 ft² Jib 17.5 ft² 18 ft² Total 106 ft² 107 ft²

Mast height (from keel) 14’ 0” 13’ 2” Boom length 11’3” 11’ 9” Yard length 11’3” 10’ 6” Area of lateral resistance Total 18.5 ft² 18.5 ft²

NB Italicised values approximate, or measured from the original manufacturer’s drawing below in the case of col.2

We can probably believe the measurements taken from the 1989 brochure illustration below as it was produced for Character Boats when Bill Bailiff was alive. The comparison is interesting — Marian’s hull is the same size as shown in the brochure, but the spars are different. She is fitted out differently inside with a big locker for’ard and pre-formed GRP buoyancy under the seats. There are defects in the lay-up of the GRP (some voids under the gel coat) which a builder of Bill’s experience wouldn’t have allowed. Her rig is a standing lug rigged with a rope to attach the tack of the main to the mast. It hasn’t got a gooseneck or jaws so we first identified it as a balance lug and we have sailed it as such especially downwind when we slack off the tack. However, Adrian Denye put us right - a balance lug would have lots more sail area for’ard of the mast (about a third of the total). According to the PBO article the original had a dipping lug (see MSA article) but Bill says he rigged his LBPBs with a standing lug and a little jib on a bowsprit, so — “If a youngster gets into trouble he can let everything go and the sail flies forward like a flag.” The diagram taken from the brochure shows a standing lug with jaws on the for’ard end of the boom. Marian is a bit of an oddball and it seems pretty certain that she wasn’t built by Character Boats as our vendor had said all along. Is it possible that Bill lent the mould to a group of students at the College for their student project and that they decided to finish her differently?

How does our boat go? She has a removable rowing seat and really does row easily in a straight line as a result of the long shallow keel and shallow draft. We have, however, tended to rely on the ‘iron topsail’ (thanks to Ed Wingfield, I think, for that sobriquet) which used to be an over-powering Mariner 4 and is now a more handy but gearless Mariner 2 which pushes her along quite nicely at maximum hull speed. This should be around 4½ knots according to the well-known formula. We haven’t yet solved the problem of the main sheet fouling the engine casing but might fit a metal horse on the transom like on the new 14’ 6” Post Boat or find some other arrangement of the sheet. The idea of the O/B occupying the cockpit of the boat isn’t attractive as we have needed it quickly sometimes so we keep it in the well provided for it by the maker. The Mariner 4 used to slow us down even when raised (and also fouled the rudder under power) but the Mariner 2 is nearly perfect for Marian.

Stability is good with the skimming dish profile she has, and my 17 stones can walk the gunwales without any prospect of capsize. Capsize hasn’t been tried but we imagine it is a procedure to be avoided at all costs. We can safely try a tethered capsize in Lake Lothing which is salt water and has a beach but haven’t done so yet. We half filled up, close to Skye Bridge, and it wasn’t a good experience. The built-in buoyancy would keep the whole thing afloat (she weighs 720 lb and she has 740 lb of built-in buoyancy consisting of 13.0 ft³ of enclosed space plus 3.4 ft³ for the volume of the GRP and attached wood excluding spars — see table below).

Table 2. Buoyancy data for Marian excluding spars (approximate)

Weight hull and fittings 513 lb Ballast 145 lb Outboard, anchors, tools etc. 62 lb Total 720 lb

Displacement Enclosed spaces 560 lb Hull and fittings 180 lb Total 740 lb

We would be unwise to increase the amount of ballast any further and need to be careful about overloading on camping trips. We take with us our otherwise useless beach rollers (65 lb displacement each) securely tied in order to increase the buoyancy over the DCA recommendation of 112 lb excess. The rollers also act as oversize fenders and comfy seats. I don’t know whether she would invert, but the unstayed wooden mast is impressively massive at 3¾” tapering to 2½” in 13’8”. It weighs 29.5 lb and can be just comfortably lifted in and out by one person! The other ‘loose’ wooden fittings (boom, yard, tiller, rudder, oars and bowsprit) weigh a further 47.5 lb and will float, with the exception of the rudder, but will not help the boat stay afloat. I expect the halyards would hold the mast in but I have just realised that we need to secure it independently of them so that we can lower the sails without releasing the mast if she ever goes over on her side. The quickly demountable rig is a good feature to have at Lowestoft as we sailors and the town continue to suffer from the lifting bridge which splits both the town and harbour in two and which isn’t known to open willingly for 14’ dinghies at unprescribed times of the day!

With a new purpose-built trailer from Character Boats, launch and recovery is a one-person operation. If the towing vehicle has front wheel drive and the slope is steep or loose it helps if you take out the 145 lb of ballast first and put it on the bonnet of the car. We used to fill the bilges with bags of sand (about 110 lb) as the brochure implies, but now we use lead and can get more weight below the floor. Pulling up a beach by hand or horizontally across a mud flat is out of the question at over 7 cwt! She is heavy as a result of an extremely strong build with a ‘good lay’ of glass fibre from 3/16” to 1/4” thick throughout. This was Bill Bailiff’s style — but he would probably have given good instructions if he lent the mould. Her 20” draught and impossible weight are barriers to getting ashore dry and clean over a shallow muddy beach so we will take an inflatable for getting ashore in future. I expect she would be totally impervious to a beating in the surf against pebbles for a short while at least, though that doesn’t influence our navigation, I promise! We carry a Danforth anchor on the foredeck attached with chain to the prescribed 50m of 8mm rope in the locker secured to a ringbolt through the keel plate in the bow. We also take a fisherman’s anchor in the after locker and a spare anchor rope. Flares are carried in our life preserving vest pockets, sea-kayak fashion, and spares are in a screw top barrel secured but accessible on deck.

The bilge runners function as more efficient lateral resistance and they are also of some use for keeping her closer to the vertical when beached. They only reduce her cant from 30 degrees to 20 degrees so we might need legs if we are to sleep over a dry beach if it is too hard for the keel to sink in. I judge leeway to be up to 20 degrees in a rough sea and 10 in a flat, so her windward performance is a lot less than it initially seems. With our rig she tacks reluctantly and requires a tidy forward momentum and a shove with a well-backed jib to go round. On the odd embarrassing occasion (against tide beneath the Skye road bridge again) we have given her an extra shove with the outboard rather than wearing ship. She is fairly slow in a light air and needs a good bit of wind to get up speed but bubbles along very satisfyingly in a F3-4. Much above that, despite a reef, she can take a slosh or two of water over the low bow when beating into the waves. You have to keep up enough momentum to luff up and over the bigger wave fronts. She needs reefing earlier rather than later for both beating and running and she can luff heavily when close-hauled under full sail in a good breeze and can show plenty of weather helm if heeled.

Part of the problem is that the jib is difficult to flatten on the halyard and photos show that the jib is not acting as an aerofoil and so stops the boat accelerating. Adrian Denye also tells me that the sail plan of Bill’s boats was adapted from the working rig of the small fishing whammels of the Lancashire coast and is not optimal for cruising. The static centre of effort with this sail plan, with a tiny jib like ours, is almost directly over the centre of lateral resistance. The whammels, which had larger jibs, were sailed on main alone when working. The mainsail was scandalised by raising it on a reef towards the mast, which provided headroom. In this position the static centre of effort would have been for’ard of the C of LR and the boat would sail reasonably well. The neutral or aft balance which derives from this mast position and sail plan, coupled with our small jib, probably gives us our tacking and acceleration problems. If we shifted the mast forward or increased the jib area or reduced the leech of the main we would get the proper balance under full sail. A bigger jib would work better with the mainsail so I prefer this solution. More ballast might help too by reducing heel, increasing inertia and also her grip on the water but we are over the safe limit now from a buoyancy point of view and so that is not an option.

Two well-used sets of reef points are provided on our loose-footed main. Running can be nice work with the main tack slackened off to balance the lug across the mast watching out for the bigger seas aft. She goes well downwind under only the jib, though not so well half full of water (that Skye bridge again!). Lowering the main is not an easy task in the middle of a squall when running, where lack of vigilance might result in a possible broach and capsize. It is possible with a crew, of course, but definitely cannot be done singlehanded. Her lowish rig probably helped her to cope with the wild omni-directional squalls we experienced in Loch Carron. Our old Post Boat is possibly a boat for the lochs, only to be taken to open sea cautiously in predictable weather.

Mostly we sail Marian out of Lowestoft. We reached Southwold and back one glorious September day in 2001. Southwold and Orford are good places to launch and sail from and we have the Essex rivers close by. The whole outfit tows and launches easily so we have taken her further afield several times. We have had a canvas tent made which goes over the bundled-up spars and sails supported on scissors aft and tied to the mast forward. The sides are secured all round with 2 inch Velcro straps to a full circle of bungee cord attached beneath the outer gunwale on small metal hooks. The tent kept us snug all night in a rainy F7 at anchor in Loch Carron and also at Plockton and so was more than adequate for a night on Walton Backwaters and off Itchenor. There is plenty of space for cooking and sleeping (the cockpit floor measures about 8’ x 4’) and the headroom is fine even if you sit on the seats. She could sleep three medium or four small on the cockpit floor but is really comfy for two large. As to our journeys in Marian, we did the bit around Skye Bridge and Loch Carron in the uncalled-for weather which I have already mentioned several times, and which I can’t seem to forget. The Holy Island meet of 2002 had us reaching the Inner Sound of the Farnes in welcome company, followed by a great sail on Derwentwater later in the week. We tried to link up with Ted Jones in the Walton Backwaters in the same year (this will be the first he knows about it) but went up the wrong creek. In August 2002 we spent a splendid few days in the Solent going over to Newtown IoW and along to the Hamble from Keyhaven and also doing the full circuit around Hayling Island through Chichester and Langstone harbours. The unstayed mast was invaluable when we had to cross under the A3023.

On the way home we were crashed into from behind on the M25. Marian broke free of the trailer, slammed into the back of Tim’s van and bounced into the middle lane where she slid for a short distance from a 60 mph start! She was the least unscathed of two vans, one trailer and an outboard, all of which were written off! This terrifying crash in the evening rush hour (caused by a sleeping driver in a following van) held up the motorway for 2 hours and reached the national news. Fortunately no one was injured. This unnecessary accident kept us off the water for exactly a year and it is only now, 14 months after, that his insurance company finally settled with us. Uncounted too are the lost blissful days and the ruined woodwork.

Bill Bailiff passed away in late 1995 and his Character Boat business was taken over Adrian Denye. The company continues to manufacture GRP replica boats (Lune Pilot, Lune Whammel, Lune Longboat and Post Boat etc.) with trailers to match at a factory unit in Lytham St Annes, but they are now very different from Bill’s boats. Adrian is trained in naval architecture and has put his skills to use in optimising the weight, sail plan and buoyancy of all the boats with the aim of improving their sea-worthiness. The LBPB has now been replaced by the upgraded 14’6” Post Boat which makes Marian look a little primitive in comparison! The new boat is double-skinned and now carries enough buoyancy to float the QE2. Adrian tells me she will come up practically dry after a capsize! One slight ‘con’ against this absolutely huge ‘pro’ is that the cockpit is a bit narrower than that of the LBPB and, consequently, she would not sleep two as easily as our old one. You can keep the outboard in the after locker such is the expanded enclosed storage space. The LBPB is hopelessly deficient in this respect and nearly everything goes into dry-bags or barrels.

Despite the gleaming new hulls and the shiny hardwood fittings fit to drool over, the inside of the new 14’6” Post Boat hasn’t the same charming and simple lines of the old boat. The outside is the same, of course, and she is still a good-looking boat and will be much drier and incomparably safer than the LBPB. The new one shouts “Safe!” and “Modern!” whereas Marian whispers about “Sheep and Seaweed” in Gaelic. So, after all the honest talking she has suffered and the odious comparisons, I should end by reassuring Marian that we won’t be giving her up just yet, just a bit of a change to her rig. Sláinte chugat!

Thanks to Tim Delaney for helpful comments and literature; to Mike Williams the DCA Librarian for finding the splendid book Sails by Derek Harvey and various Bulletin articles, and to Adrian Denye for his photographs, the article by Hamish Barber, advice about the rig and comments on several crucial points.