;)
;)
INTRODUCTION: In my childhood during the 50s, my father frequently took me sailing
on the Duemmer See (site) in Northern Germany
in his
PIRAT,
a 17 foot wooden dinghy with 10 m2 of sail.
The Duemmer is a shallow but natural body of inland water, a kind of
reed lake,
surrounded by the marshy lowlands and bogs & swamps of Lower Saxony.
The winds are usually brisk and conditions for
dinghy sailing
are close to perfect.
Despite my youthful appreciation for the sheer beauty of the lake,
I remember mostly the two emotions which for me as a youngster dominated
these outings: UTTER FEAR and/or TOTAL BOREDOM.
However, unbeknownst to me, there must have been another very positive underlying experience which did not surface until much later in form of this newly found passion which arose quite unexpectedly when I more or less by chance sailed a Sunfish during a family vacation on Cape Cod. It was a blast and my sailing passion was ignited. By the way, the sunfish is a fun boat. And the Pirat of yesteryear is still enjoying quite some popularity (site) throughout Northern Europe albeit as a fibreglass racing dinghy.
NOTE: In order to make best use of the information offered on this page, please begin by clicking on the CRITERIA button as to understand the premise of this page. You will notice that I have included some boats in this lineup which upon further reflection are really more racers than daysailers. In fact, many boats (and its designers) intentionally blur this distinction and, in many cases do so quite successfully. The Comet, Tasar and Snipe are racers which still make very decent daysailers whereas the Buzz and Windmill will be hard pushed in the service of family daysailing.
On the other hand, some dinghies are strictly daysailors while still others lend themselves to even bigger dreams. I came across one delightful and well-written account by Craig Ramage of a cruising adventure on a CL-16 (the Canadian version of a Wayfarer) which is a case in point.
Please be advised that this is not a commercial page. The material contained herein represents "one person's opinion" and must not be construed as professional advise.
;)
My first own sailboat was the
Zuma
made by Alcort Sailboats. This boat is now manufactured by Vanguard.
This Zuma is a great starter boat and many sail their
Zuma for years with great enjoyment. The sail area of 65 sq. ft. is a bit smaller than
the sunfish sail of 75 sq.ft. but the cockpit (length=4'9") has a lot more room.
The wide beam (5') and hull design makes for good stability. Still,
the boat zooms along quite nicely and the 129 pound hull can be brought on a plane
rather easily. For me it proved to be the ideal starter. Other great small single-handed
dinghies are the Force 5, Laser and of course the most popular of all, the above
mentioned Sunfish. More recently, a number of exciting small dinghy designs have appeared
on the sailing horizon. So, there are some excellent contenders for getting one's feet
wet and even old salts would enjoy knocking around in the bay.
As for me, I needed a new challenge so, I began looking for a boat in the 14-15 foot range which I later expanded up to the 17-18 foot range.
The following three boats were considered as well and are listed here even though they really turned out not to fit my more generic criteria.
| Buzz | Laser II | One Design 14 |
I do not know much about the following boats but they would appear to meet the list of criteria in as much as I can tell.
| Designer's Choice | Sparkman Stephens 1977, 1500 built, 14'11", 315 lbs, sails: 120 sq.ft. |
| Town Class | Pert Lowell 1932, 2500 built, 16'6", 800 lbs, 152 sq.ft. |
| Mobjack | Roger Moorman 1961, 550 built, 17', 450 lbs, 180 sq.ft. |
| Hampton One-Design | V.J. Serio 1934, 900 built, 18', 500 lbs, sails: 175 sqft |
| Geary 18 | Ted Geary 1928, Star Trainer ? built, 18'1", 525 lbs, sails: 200 sqft |
| Exploration 18 | Jean Grenier 1996, 6 built, 680 lbs, sails: 172 sqft |
Another attractive boat that came to my attention (1997) was the SuperScow 16. Alas, this boat has since then already been discontinued which proves that it takes more than a fine design to build and establish a successful one-design dinghy.
For those who are interested in boat owners opinions on their boats, you may find the SailNET Boatcheck site highly useful:
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The following sailboat sites will prove very useful
to anyone in search of information about dinghies:
Mark Rosenstein's Sailing Page
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Every E-sailor should have this site bookmarked.
It is an extremely valuable resource and worthy of exploration.
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This site has perhaps the most complete list of dinghies with drawings and specifications.
For example, this was the only site (I could find) which had any information on the PIRAT boat other
than the above referenced European site.
- BoatingLinks.com is a complete directory of Boating Links for boaters who wish to compare boats, charters,
products, and information sources available on the web.
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