On page 64 of Bulletin 184 there is a very atmospheric photograph of Dave Smith's Skipper 17 basking in the warm glow of a still evening – or is it 'dawn's early light'? Unfortunately the text claims it is Ted Jones's The Genie, which it ain't, because his boat happens to be a Sunspot 15. This was the only real publishing error in the issue, so we can afford to make a handsome apology. (But don't take this as any kind of precedent.)

By way of making amends to Ted (if not to Dave Smith) here are two boats he sailed in the days before he decided that one with a cabin was the best way to keep his slippers and smoking jacket dry. The Fleetwind, designed by Alan Eckford, was just an inch-and-a-bit over 12' in length, with a beam of 4'6", but it carried 95 sq ft of sail on a deck-stepped 20' mast. It weighed a mere ten stones (140 lbs, 63.6 kilos) and yes, it was used for racing. Ted built his own. The second boat he looks back on with great affection, especially as it ended its sailing career being burned by a vandal in the club compound, is the Vagabond, probably the prettiest boat Jack Holt ever designed. Ted wrote its epitaph, most movingly, in the Bulletin long ago under the title of 'Bye-Bye Black Sheep'. See Bulletins 102 & 127 for Ted's earlier articles.

The Vagabond was commissioned by the Yachting World as an intermediate design between the Heron and the GP14, being 3" short of 12' in length with a 4'9" beam. It is always a mystery to me why some boats thrive and others disappear. Both the Heron and the GP14 are still popular boats, made mainly in fibreglass, with the GP rapidly becoming an international class in its latest incarnation, which boasts a self-draining cockpit and many fiddly bits. The Vagabond had a double-chine hull with canted side decks and seats – a good-looking craft from any angle. It had an easily-handled gunter rig with a choice of cruising or racing sails. Because its buoyancy was located in the bow and stern, with none under the side benches, it lay down flat on its side when capsized, without showing any tendency to invert – more about the desirability of that characteristic at a future time. It has almost sunk without trace while the other two have sailed on triumphantly. I'll hear nothing said against the little Heron, one of which was the first dinghy I owned, having cost me a princely £60, but I am less fond of the GP – especially of the early models in glass. I'm sure the racing fraternity have ensured its longevity, for despite its toughness and the 'General Purpose' tag, its main function has always been that of a basic racer. In addition to an uninspiring hull lacking in stowage space it is, I think, an uncomfortable boat to sail, with a narrow interior and too many sharp bits under your fundament when you are sitting it out – or in. Capsizing it was an experience never to be forgotten. No doubt coming so soon after World War II, it was seen then as the best thing since the Fairmile 'D' Motor Torpedo Boat (also hard-chine plywood). It was understandably popular years ago, when there was less competition, and it was the sail trainer for me and thousands of others as children, some of whom will now want to skin me alive for insulting such a lovely old childhood friend (including, no doubt, the half-dozen or so DCA members who sail them!). In fairness, it seems that a lot of problems have been ironed out in the latest version.

While Ted and I were batting e-mails back and forth about boats, he brought up the subject of the 'DCA designs', the Rebell and Roamer, which he feels have not had a mention in the Bulletin for some time, and what was I going to do about it? In fact the last mention was five years ago, I discovered. As we're about to enter the 50th anniversary year, and Eric Coleman was the founding father of the DCA, it may give us some historical perspective to look at his early attempt to design a dinghy solely for cruising – the Roamer. The continuing discussion of capsizing in the present Bulletin possibly makes the subject all the more relevant.

Although I do have Eric Coleman's book 'Dinghies for all Waters' tucked away somewhere, the website www.SmallBoatForum.com provided me with the extract from the book which deals with the boat. Sharing the same PDF document is Peter Bick's article 'The Roamer Dinghy'. There is a lot of overlap between the two descriptions, naturally, but if you want to read them, or download them, and see some colour photographs of the boat too, log on to the website.

Few designers over the years have set out to design a light cruising dinghy pure and simple before the present time of varied and interesting boats. Interestingly, one of Eric's spiritual forebears appears in this Bulletin: Albert Strange's hull weighed eight hundredweights, he tells us in his account (896 lbs, 407.27 kilos). A real lightweight for its day. Most of the plywood designs contemporaneous with Roamer were racers, or dual rôle boats. Older clinker dinghies were often very suited to cruising but were not especially dedicated as such from their inception. EC had proved himself to be an indomitable open-water dinghy cruiser, but he knew that there were as many uses for cruising dinghies as owners, from bird-watching to intrepid exploration, and his aim was simple and right on target: "Roamer was designed primarily to encourage dinghy cruising by keeping the crew out of trouble." And a boat can only do that by staying upright.

The Roamer

Roamer is well-ballasted and Eric Coleman claimed that she is self-righting from 110º of heel. (As opposed to 115º for a 'typical' yacht, he said, but of course yachts are blown down far less easily than dinghies.) This ability depends on the ballast, but also on its being complemented by buoyancy carried high in the ends, in the manner of early rowing lifeboats, now perpetuated in modern ocean-going rowing boats. He felt he was marrying this feature to modern dinghy design – modern by the standards of the middle of the 20th Century, that is. The double-chine 8mm plywood hull in some ways is reminiscent of the Wayfarer, the Enterprise and the Gull, to name three from the same era, with shallow deadrise, a broad transom and a flat run aft (which would encourage planing in a lighter boat). Both EC and Peter Bick refer to the deadrise in way of the transom as a feature which partly counteracts the tendency to generate hard-mouthed weather helm in boats of this type when they are heeled and the underwater shape becomes asymmetrical. This tendency in wedge-shaped hulls has been known since the 19th Century at least, but it seems to be ignored by some modern dinghy designers who insist on having totally flat bottoms running right aft to the transom. Eric Coleman liked to sail his dinghies at an angle of heel for the boat and skipper to have something 'to lean against', but it is inefficient to sail any dinghy with too much heel. My objection to some of these flat bottoms is supported by photographs that show a bubbling turmoil of water at the transom when the boats are under way: they tend to squat, and those bubbling wakes indicate lost energy, inefficient progress and a poor attitude in the water.

The more interesting aspects of the design are not found in other plywood boats of the same era. The truncated keel that gives directional stability is cut away sharply fore and aft to allow the boat to tack freely. Anyone building or adapting a design for cruising would do well to heed this simple feature which enables the boat to look after herself to an extent when called upon, especially with a helm impeder. It also helps the boat to sail to windward in shallow water with the plate up. Bilge runners contribute to this, of course, as well as serving to protect the hull when drying out. The aft sections of the side benches are removable and can be arranged across the fore end of the cockpit to form a rowing thwart.

The internal ballast of 76 lbs (34.5 kilos) can be removed for trailing or when sailing in sheltered waters. The wire for raising the centreboard is shrouded in a trunk which prevents the level of water in a swamped boat reaching a height where bailing is impossible (as was the case with the early Drascombe Luggers). The large buoyancy compartments are unashamedly recommended for stowage, with the bow compartment being big enough to take a 7'6" inflatable. There is a tendency for experts these days to shudder at the very thought of tanks being used for stowage, but they ignore the fact that you are never going to pack in equipment and clothing of the same weight as a similar volume of water, and if the compartments are really generous, and supplemented with buoyancy bags under the side benches, then there is bound to be more than enough buoyancy available whatever you put in those tanks.

The cockpit sole is not deep for a dinghy with this amount of freeboard, because it is raised sufficiently to allow a massive amount of stowage space under the floorboards for wet or heavy items. I had to look twice before I realised that I was looking at the dotted outline of a patent anchor lying to starboard of the centreboard case, and not a viking battle-axe! The level of the sole is high enough for it to be sealed off and self-draining if you wished, but EC does not recommend this, and it has to be admitted there is room for a lot of stuff under there and the weight is exactly in the right place. This raised sole makes movement between the seats and sidedecks easy when balancing the boat to windward, and the 'forecastle' and 'sterncastle' reduce the sense of exposure, but sitting out is always a matter of choice to enhance weatherliness, it is never imperative. The tent/awning is kept ready, rolled up and lashed against the forward bulkhead. In use, the sides are held out by the oars being positioned longitudinally. When sailing, the oars are stowed beneath the side decks. The sail area is a conservative 115 sq. ft. maximum, with genoa hoisted.

These days, the high foredeck is probably not acceptable as a safe area on which to handle moorings and ground tackle, despite EC's provision of 20mm toerails for himself! The other main disadvantage of the design is of course aesthetic; she has what Eric Coleman himself admitted to be 'an alarming appearance' and he gives the builder the choice of leaving out the top hamper – and the self-righting ability, of course – to produce a boat that still would be very hard to capsize. Peter Bick gives impressive evidence of the confidence bred in the owners of Roamers by citing lengthy open-water cruises and various hairy sailing escapades. Perhaps the design will not appeal in its totality to as many now as it did some years ago, but aspects of it still have something to teach us. It is very interesting to compare EC's approach to the challenge of producing a small, self-righting boat with that of Mukti Mitchell in Explorer, featured elsewhere in the Bulletin. I realise that Explorer is a cabin cruiser, but so is Rebell, a Roamer with a lid! Although most would agree that dependable performance and good looks in the eye of the owner are equally important in a cruising boat, let's leave the last word to Eric Coleman: "Actually, I have a theory that the appearance of a boat suddenly becomes of minor importance when one is out at sea in deteriorating weather."

ROAMER 14 FT CRUISING DINGHY Full Plans, with instructions and study plans, are available from Dave Jennings, Technical Advisor, Dinghy Cruising Association. Tel: 01400-230944; email: dave_jennings@lineone.net KM