Posted by Jonathan Labaree on January 31, 2003 at 21:47:26 from 207.5.234.19 user JLabaree.
In Reply to: Re: Skylark posted by Andrew Craig-Bennett on January 31, 2003 at 20:27:23:
Andrew,
Piglet sounds terrific! I love the idea of a little diesel in a small sailing boat. Sounds like a lot of fun. Roger would have appreciated that, I think. Must be wonderful having her full of children!
When my folks replaced the engine in their cutter, I thought long and hard about buying their old 5hp Westerbeke and trying to squeeze it into either my 14’ peapod (a double-ended rowing boat developed in Maine for lobstering) or 16’ sharpie (a flat-bottomed, shallow draft sailboat developed for oystering in Long Island Sound). I was afraid that single-cylinder engine would rattle the peapod to pieces and I couldn’t quite find the room in the sharpie due to the centerboard trunk. So, I passed on the idea, but would still love to try it. I built an outboard skiff recently, so I have my motorboat, but a slow putt-putt is still a dream.
My peapod actually makes fairly good progress to windward without a centerboard as long as there is a decent breeze. No centerboard certainly has the advantages of creating more room in the boat and making it significantly easier to build (an important consideration when I was building her in high school). It’s fun to sail without a rudder, shifting weight fore and aft to steer. The trickiest point of sail is directly down wind because you have to get your weight all the way aft. Since it’s a double-ender, that also means your weight is directly amidships. If there’s a decent breeze, the boat rolls alarmingly with a gust comes. Great fun, though.