Posted by andy bolger on July 06, 2001 at 22:49:11 from 62.7.60.86:
In Reply to: Re: good boats/Memories posted by Robert Thompson on July 06, 2001 at 20:19:17:
I'll second that. "Non boaty appearance"! Excuse me while I have an apoletic choking fit. Red sails, lots of varnish what could be prettier?
Faster? Well almost anything is faster than the famous floating wardrobe but to my mind they are charming.To illustrate the point I have a very fine post card of the red sails of a Mirror reflected in Coniston Water.
Cadets? Yuk. Nasty brutish and short as Mr Hobbes said. I have not especially happy memories of sailing them in Falmouth Harbour when I was at school. I wasn't a big 12 year old but even I found them unpleasantly cramped. They now seem to be an endangered species, so perhaps we had better be kind to them. Herons, on the other hand are a much more pleasant prospect but again on the CITES list and not exactly contemporary.
Although a Heron or a Mirror would have suited 2 Amazons, neither of them would have been very suited for a family of Swallows plus camping paraphrenalia. Nor, if my experience is anything to go by, would they take season after season of being dragged, full of gear up rocky Lake District beaches.
As for Lasers, great fun and the first choice of kids who want to sail but not natural cruising boats. Possible yes, with the aid of wet suits, ortlieb bags and bungy cord but not the sort of thing you'd choose for a week camping with a family of five. You could, however, imagine the savage Eels descending in a fleet of them even if their masts would show a long way above the sea wall.
I still think there is a lot to be said for the good old lug sail dinghy and have very happy memories of pottering around Rudyard in Cochy.
Draw backs? Expensive to buy new as the man said but aren't all boats? Heavy to launch and recover but the S & As were sensible and didn't bother with trailer sailing [O.K except in CIN]. And, if the boat in question is Cochy; a dread of the awful fate in store should you make a mess of her. The knowledge that the boat you are sailing has just come out of a museum makes rocks look that much sharper.
Do plastic boats have a soul? Can blue men sing the whites? Wooden boats are beautiful but a boat's soul comes from the people who sail her , her history and from the from the wind and waves, as much as or more than the medium from which she is made.