From the interesting/scary department, something well worth reading, and this explains a lot...
A reader from Finland pointed out in an email this morning that...
"I've been reading your years-long struggle to zero-in on a suitable tender, and the interesting dual-use pull towards using a kayak as a dinghy. I agree with your line of thinking. Now with your recent acquisition of a Hobie with mirage drives, I see the challenge is shifting to stowage capacity. So, with all this deliberation, over the years, I thought you might eventually come around to my idea of the perfect tender for a small sailboat: a canoe."He goes on...
"Canoes are inexpensive, can be paddled, have extremely high stowage capacity for their size (and can hold water and fuel canisters deep in their hold), and they are extremely agile. They are also easily convertible with flotation to be non-sinkable, can be fitted with rowlocks, can also be sailed easily with simple thwarts (the easiest system I've seen is directly using a snark sail that furls by spinning the thin mast), and with (removable) retractable outriggers, can be made extremely stable. Their long profile fits the bill for your idea of keeping the boat on deck (despite our concurrence that a clean deck is the best kind)."He sorta/kinda had me at the word canoe.
Interesting timing because last night I was looking at this Michael Storer design and thinking Mirage...
A quick to build plywood design called the Quick Canoe...
It obviously needs bisecting or trisecting to make it nestable/stowable as well as some rethinking to make the Mirage drives work but I doubt either is anything like rocket science... So, I expect, it's doable!
For more information on the design you can find it over at Duckworks.
Listening to Lee Fields & The Expressions
So it goes...
