Mystery boat again

Another mystery boat. Got this email:
"Hi, found your website while browsing, looks great,could'nt find any yachts like mine,any ideas on the identity of this yacht type please. It has a bowsprit, two foresails and gunter rig, with a vire 6 inboard, we have been bringing it back to life during the summer and will be re-launched later this month, but we still cannot find out the type, any ideas would be greatful, the sail emblem resembles a flying bird like
symbol, similar to a Gull dinghy emblem,

kind regards John"

More pictures:






Goes without saying, any help to identify the make of boat is greatly appreciated.

Cruising as a Way of Life - part II

This engineless approach to cruising also reintroduces another pleasure, largely forgotten by many sailing people nowadays. It is the enjoyment of that richly thrilling moment when, after a prolonged calm, the sails first lift and swell to a hint of a breeze. The joy of laying aside one's oar to ghost effortlessly forward under drawing canvas was one of the great delights of sailors from Homeric times to the late nineteenth century. We have forgotten it. If we are motoring through a calm, the very special music of that first subtle wind-induced trickle around the bow is invaribly drowned out by the engine's roar.
It appears that we live in a strange age. Not only do some people laugh at the unfamiliar sight of a cruising yacht being rowed, but a few even consider it cause for a rescue attempt. Last summer, while happily sweeping Galadriel out to sea in search of a breeze, I was overtaken by a wouldbe rescue boat that roared up alongside. When I said good morning and politely declined their offer of help, the couple in the poweboat asked med what, precisely, I was doing. I answered that I was rowing.
"Gosh", the young fellow said, "I've never seen that before!"
I love oil lamps and hate the glaring excess of electrics. Even the riding light that my little sloop carries while anchored overnight is a small oil lamp. It can be seen from a distance of half a mile, yet it doesn't so grossly flood the anchorage with glare that one cannot enjoy the delicate glitter of starlight overhead. I'm afraid that my love of fellow yachtsmen fails altogether when their 500-watt masthead lights turn a dark, lonely cove into something like a floodlit supermarket.
My fetish for primitive lamps, however, seems to amaze many sailing people who come aboard. They ask if oil lighting isn't dangerous to one's health. When a friend complained of the smell of kerosene, I replied that, to me, it is the smell of freedom.
The essence of small-boat cruising is freedom from fuss and bother, of which there is plenty in our everyday lives ashore. A tiny, featherweight cruiser is the most trouble-free craft afloat. Many of my sailing friends have a mortal dread of going aground. If their 5-ton fin keelers get hung up on the rocks, disaster is a virtual certainty. By contrast, when Galadriel goes aground (as she does frequently), she sits comfortably on her shallow twin keels in two feet of water. To get her off, I simply jump over the stern and lift her clear.
Everything aboard my boat is crude and simple. If a boom fitting breaks, I just make another. The originals, after all, were merely handwrought bits of steel, rather than fancy items purchased in a yacht chandlery. If I drop a heavy anchor onto a bunk cushion and split it open at the seams, it doesn't matter. It's easy to redo my own rough handstitching. When her bottom needs a coat of antifouling paint, it is a simple matter to paddle her over to the beach and go gently aground. The cost of upkeep is almost nothing - an essential prerequisite to carefree sailing.
The shallow draft has introduced me to a special cruising pleasure denied to larger, deeper craft. I have discovered that British Columbia's rocky coast abounds in tiny cracks and crannies into which I can paddle my little boat. Inside, in water that may only be a couple of feet deep (and totally dried out at low water), I luxuriate in a private anchorage, while more conventional yachts cluster together in droves in the more usual anchoring spots.
Occasionally, I have watched a larger yacht, at the end of a cruise or a daysail, tacking back and forth in the harbour for an hour while someone tries without success to start the engine. Without power, of course, the owner of a big heavy-displacement vessel dares not to attempt the entry into his berth among the ranks in a crowded marina. My little pocket cruiser, on the other hand, works her way handily under sail into the thightest corner. If she does happen to drift out of control in a cramped spot, a gentle shove with the foot is enough to redirect her miniscule inertia and avoid collision.
Yet a little boat ot good design can be a fine offshore sailor, too, as is evidenced by Shane Acton's circumnavigation of the world in a Caprice class sloop like my own. While he was in Australia, Acton was offered the chance of an unbelievable trade - a new 30-foot ocean cruising yacht in exchange for his intriguing little 18-footer. He turned down the offer.
Like Shane Acton, I own a simple little boat that I know intimately and love dearly. It would be sheer folly ever to exchange her for the illusory attractions of something grander.

Philip Teece

Reprint: Cruising as a way of Life

Another of Phil Teece's articles in reprint. This one was first published in Small Boat Journal #68, 1989.

It is a calm summer evening just at sunset. In the stillness characteristic of this hour, among the wooded islands of the British Columbia coast, my little sloop Galadriel lies motionless on an inverted mirror-image of herself.
Her intended anchorage for the night, a sand-fringed lagoon on the lee side of a small densely treed isle, lies less than half a mile distant. If she had an engine, I might perhaps be tempted to ruin the magical quietude of this place with its jarring din.
Instead I step forward along her narrow side deck and unship the 10-foot sweep from its upright stowage position on one of the lower shrouds. Without hurry, I drop its long leather collar into place in the oarlock beside the cockpit. Then, standing with the tiller between my knees for control, I begin a slow, quiet oarstroke that moves the boat forward, gradually gathering a sedate knot-and-a-quarter speed in the direction of the cove. At this pace, it will take me perhaps half an hour to reach the spot on which I shall drop anchor. But why should I want to get there any faster?
Later, as my little ship lies peacefully in the gathering darkness of the lagoon, I go below for supper. While a can of stew warms up on the single-burner gimballed primus stove, I light the lamp. The tiny cabin glows warmly (and, in fact, actually warms up) in the mellow light of my bulkhead lamp. This small kerosene lamp is all that is needed to flood the compact space with a glory of light. Although supper is a primitive meal eaten from the billycan in which it was heated, it provides one luxury: Cleanup afterwards takes only about 20 seconds.
After the evening meal, I recline on my bunk with a good book. The ceiling is a scant few inches above my head, but I feel as comfortable as pampered royalty. The flickering orange glow that illuminates my page reflects dimly from painted wooden surfaces and casts deep shadows in the angles behind hull-frames and deckbeams. As I lie on the handsewn cushion of my bunk, my feet project forward almost into the open chainlocker in the forepeak. In fact, my living space is small enough so that, without moving from where I lie so comfortably, I can reach across to the galley counter to grasp my cup of coffee.
The style of cruising described above is unfamiliar to many yachtsmen of the 1980s. In recent years, I have encountered increasing numbers of people to whom a "small" boat is something of 27 to 30 feet in overall length, with a powerful engine, electrical wiring for lights and other elecronic gadgetry, and a built-in dinette and bar. To a surprising majority of the cruising fraternity whom I meet in various West Coast anchorages, my spartan 18-foot sloop is an object of dismay and even disapoval.
Yet, nearly two decades after her launching, Galadriel still represents my dream of the perfect boat for adventure. Her smallness and simplicity have become my way of life afloat. A shoa-draft design ny British naval architect Robert Tucker, she is a twin-keeled Caprice class sloop, a little over 18 feet in length and 1,600 pounds displacement. She sails well (a fact I learned fully when I finally gave up using and outboard motor), and she can be moved surprisingly easily by oarpower.
I enjoy depending on sail and oar. In more than one emergency situation, I have found that an outboard engine has failed to start; my long spruce sweep has never given that problem. The technique of rowing a vessel with a single long oar is onethat takes considerable practice. When the oarsman develops skill in balancing the turning-moment of the oarstroke against exactly the right counterpressure of the helm, he enjoys a great sense of physical satisfaction. There is a sort of pleasurable Zen of rowing with a sweep.
To be continued.