Pocket cruiser
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A Pocket cruiser, Microcruiser or Pocket yacht is a small sailboat with a cabin, whose length is at or under 20 feet (6 m), with some examples as short as 10 to 12 feet (3 to 3.7 m) in length. Pocket cruisers are different from day sailers in that the cabin makes it practical for one or more people to sleep in the boat, meaning it can be used for trips of more than a day. Both commercially made and designs for home built pocket cruisers are readily available.
Description
Pocket cruisers are usually about 15 feet (5 m) long, with a beam over 6 feet (2 m). Commercial models generally have either a short, ballasted shoal draft keel or a weighted centerboard, while home-built designs often use water ballast and leeboards. The short length and low weight of pocket cruisers (and short keels on models with fixed keels) allow them to be trailered easily.
Pocket cruisers are, in general, not fast boats; the short waterline and wide beam required to provide the basic accommodations generally limit the speed that the hulls are capable of. While the short overall length keeps most of these boats to inland waters or onshore sailing, many have keels or other forms of ballast (often water ballast) that allow them to be self-righting from angles of greater than 90 degrees. Many people have sailed pocket cruisers long distances across open ocean, including a number of Atlantic crossings.
Since the short, beamy hull of the pocket cruiser is not suited to speed, designers are willing to sacrifice some performance for ease of use. Traditional rigs, like gaff rigs, are not uncommon, compared to the nearly universal high aspect Bermuda rigs found on other modern sailboats. The lower aspect rigs lose some windward abilities, but make up for it in superior downwind performance and ease of use. The West Wight Potter 15, for example, uses a unique sail design that is a cross between a gaff sail and a Bermuda sail, which gives it more sail area on a shorter mast than would be possible with a true Bermuda sail; this gives a greater sail area with less heeling force than a taller, narrower sail. Still, it is not a performance craft, as evidenced by the fact that it has the lowest Portsmouth handicap (138.1) of any production centerboard boat listed. The Sunfish, which is by far the most popular day sailer ever made, has a Portsmouth handicap of 99.6. This means that the Potter 15 would take nearly 1.4 hours to sail the same distance under the same conditions as a Sunfish could in 1 hour.
Pocket cruisers are often fanatics about their boats. There are a number of reasons for this:
- They are inexpensive; popular designs such as the Montgomery 15 or West Wight Potter 15 sell new, with trailer, for around US$10,000 or less.
- They are easy to build out of easily obtained materials such as plywood, using stitch and glue or more traditional methods.
- They are small enough to sail single handed, yet the wide beam gives them the capacity to hold more people.
- They usually weigh less than 2000 pounds (900 kg). This is light enough to be towed behind most cars.
- They are suitable for overnight trips.
- The wide beam and common use of ballast makes them very stable.
- The small size means they can be stored out of the water, which negates the need to rent expensive marina slips.
Example
One of the smaller commercial pocket cruisers (shown above) was the Guppy 13, made by Melen Marine Ltd. in California. They made about 300 of them in the period between 1974 and 1975. The Guppy was a fiberglass boat with a shoal draft keel, and would sleep 2 adults in a 6 ft 8 in (2.0 m) cabin. Overall length was 12 ft 6 in (3.8 m), beam was 5 ft 7 in (1.7 m); displacement was 480 lb (218 kg) with 150 lb (68 kg) of ballast in the keel. It drew 1 ft 7 in (480 mm) empty, and flew a Bermuda rig consisting of a 32 square feet (3 m²) high aspect main sail and a 48 square feet (4.5 m²) jib (technically a genoa since it overlapped the main). Length at waterline was 11 ft 10 in (3.6 m), giving a hull speed of just under 4.5 knots (8 km/h). The shallow V hull was not designed to plane, but is generally considered very capable at cutting through choppy water. In Australia, the best known and most popular pocket cruiser is the Savage Nautilus, a shoal draft yacht of 19 ft 4 in length overall with a 7 ft 10 in beam and a full length keel that draws only 2 ft 9 in. Fitted with an 8hp Yanmar diesel and capapble of sleeping four adults, they were produced in large numbers and have proved incredibly popular with pocket cruising enthusiasts "down under".See also
Cruising (maritime)External links
- [Montgomery Sailboats] owner's group.
- [West Wight Potter] owner's group.
- [Guppy 13] owner's group.
| Types of sailing vessels and rigs | |
|---|---|
| Bark | Barque | Barquentine | Bermuda rig | Bilander | Brig | Brigantine | Caravel | Carrack | Catamaran | Catboat | Clipper | Dutch Clipper | Cog | Corvette | Cutter | Dhow | Fifie | Fluyt | Fore & Aft Rig | Frigate | Full Rigged Ship | Gaff Rig | Galleon | Gunter Rig | Hermaphrodite Brig | Junk | Ketch | Mersey Flat | Multihull | Nao | Norfolk Wherry | Pink | Pocket Cruiser | Polacca | Pram | Proa | Schooner | Ship of the Line | Sloop | Smack | Snow | Square Rig | Tall Ship | Thames Sailing Barge | Trimaran | Wherry | Windjammer | Windsurfer | Xebec | Yacht | Yawl | |
External links
- http://www.shortypen.com/boats/pocket/ Shorty Pen's Pocket Cruiser Guide, a list of most commercial cabin sailboats from 12 to 20 feet in length.
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