CHAPTER 1.

HISTORY OF OF CRUISING SAILBOATS

First a little history. In my opinion cruising as we understand it today - that is
long distance sailing in small boats for pleasure rather than for profit - began in
the late 1890s. It all started when retired sea captain Joshua Slocum found
that he could not make a living out of the rebuilt former oyster dragger, the 36 ft
9 in (11.20 m) Spray. The record of Slocums rebuilding the Spray and his
subsequent adventures has inspired tens of thousands of people to cruise in
their own boats ever since he wrote his book Sailing Alone Around the World.
In 1962 a Brisbane yachtsman affectionately known locally as Shotgun Spencer presented me with a battered copy of Sailing alone around the world . E H
Spencer was a well-respected Brisbane businessman, who took his sailing very
seriously; so seriously that during one important yacht race when another competitor did not obey the starboard rule, he showed his annoyance by diving
below and appearing on deck with his shotgun and firing both barrels across
the bows of the offending yacht. Shotgun Spencer had certainly earned his
name. Barred from taking part in future races, he was something of a local hero
to the younger yachting fraternity. I would like to recount those early days when
I was in my twenties and had just learned to sail in one of Australias skiff
classes. The Australian 18ft [5.5m] skiff, is an open boat with a veritable cloud
of sail. The 18 footers have a smaller sister, the 12ft [3.6m] skiff. This design is
still raced, and is an open boat with an oversized sail plan. The whole arrangement is only kept upright by the
weight and tenacity of a crew
of four; kept busy, especially
the bailer person, whose job it
is to remove the water that often flows over the gunwale.
Our 12 foot skiff was named
Desire and had been raced in
Sydney and won a national
championship, but, as happens with many fine boats, she
was in sad shape by the time
the hull came into my hands.
The rig was unrestricted, so
Desire was fitted with the complete rig, formerly used on Reg
DESIRE our 12 ft skiff with sliding gunter rig.
Lipkes race winning, 16ft

[4.9m] skiff. Remembering that the

hull was 12ft [3.6m]
long, the dimensions of the rig
make interesting
reading; mast 27ft
[8.2m], boom 14ft
[4.3m] bowsprit 8ft
[2.4m] and the spinnaker required a
three piece pole
measuring 20ft
[6.1m]. There was
no ballast, other
than that supplied
by the live and very
Here we see DESIRE with her new rig - Crew Bruce, Ian, Noel and Gwenda
active crew. After a Roberts-Goodson as bailer girl, see white water going over the side !
stint of building and
racing multi-hulls, time was taken out of the boating industry to enable me to
study Naval Architecture. Soon after re-purchasing my old boat yard in partnership with Andrew Slorach, I became reacquainted with the Spray when Charlie
Jupp and John Haskins walked into our office and by coincidence both expressed an interest in having Spray replicas built in fiberglass.
The stories of Joshua Slocum and his sloop Spray are standard reading for
any cruising yachtsman, and his book, makes fine reading. Over the past eighty
or so years, Sailing- Alone-Around-The-World has been the inspiration for many
of those who go to sea in small boats.
John Haskins, a Spray enthusiast approached our design office and as asked
if we could prepare plans for building a replica Spray in fiberglass. John had
already built a perfectly executed scale model of the boat and had incorporated
some small modifications that he felt would update and improve the vessel
without losing the concept of the original design. By some lucky coincidence
while we were considering John Haskinss request, another yachtsman, Charlie
Jupp approached us with similar requirements. Charlie had just sailed an 8ft
draft [2.4m], narrow beam boat out from England to Australia. The experience
had convinced him that a shoal draft sailboat was better suited to his needs.
Charlie was already familiar with the Spray, and suggested that if our negotiations with John Haskins came to fruition he would also like to build a Spray for
himself.

At about this time, we were fortunate in securing a copy of Ken Slacks book In the Wake of
the Spray, which provided a wealth of information for our project. Ken, an Australian, had
included details not only of the original Spray, but had researched the twenty or so replicas or
copies that had been built since 1902. For those not already familiar with Joshua Slocums
Spray, perhaps this is a good time to recap some of the exploits of this fine boat, and to lay to
rest some misconceptions and half truths that have persisted about her over the past 90
years.

This rare photograph shows SPRAY off Sydney with Joshua Slocum and Sydney business man Mark
Foy. They are trying out the new set of sails that Foy had presented to Slocum. Photo courtesy Dr
Kenneth E Slack.
In 1892 at the age of 51, Joshua Slocum was given a decrepit sloop called Spray. and spent
the next two years rebuilding this vessel. He removed the centreboard and replaced nearly
every piece of timber in the hull, deck and superstructure. He sought to improve the seaworthiness by adding some freeboard, so that the boat would be better suited to the deep water
sailing he obviously had in mind. All the materials used in the reconstruction were collected
around Fairhaven, in Massachusetts, where Spray had lain in a field for several years. The
boats lineage is clear when one examines photographs of early examples of the North Sea
fishing boats that have worked off the coasts of several countries bordering that area; and
rumour has it that the Spray was over one hundred years old when she was given to Joshua
Slocum. There was a story that she had worked as an oyster dragger off the New England
coast. Joshua Slocum, a seaman with vast experience, must have recognised something of
the potential of his new acquisition, for otherwise he would not have invested two years of his
life in the total rebuilding of her. As it turned out, he could not have made a better choice.

The man himself - Studio photograph of

Joshua Slocum.

Slocum spent a year commercial fishing in the boat on the Atlantic coast; then, after proving
the worth of the vessel to his satisfaction, he decided to make a voyage that, even today, is
not undertaken lightly.
Slocums trip proved a resounding success. Not only did he achieve what he set out to do that is circumnavigate the world single-handed - but he proved for all time the many fine
features of Spray; features that we have seen proven over and over again in the several
hundred replicas that are now in service around the world.
Building replicas of Spray is certainly not new. Although we believe that in 1969 ours were the
first ones built of fiberglass, many copies had already been built in timber, following similar
construction methods to those used to build and rebuild the original model.
Now is probably a good time to consider just what constitutes a Spray replica. As we know
Slocum altered his original boat during the rebuilding; and many replicas, copies and/or Spray
types that were built between 1902 and 1968 did vary in one way or another from Slocums
boat as she was when he sailed her around the world.
It is our experience, and the evidence of all the hundreds of owners we have made contact
with, that-without exception-Spray replicas and near copies have retained all the fine features.

In Slocums wake have come many thousands of cruising sailors, some of

whom have become well- known personalities as a result of their exploits. One
not so well known early cruising sailor was Fred Rebel. Fred not only made
history when he sailed from Australia to USA in an 18 ft (5.49 m) skiff, he also
made his own charts! Indeed, not only his own charts but every item of
navigational equipment and put them to the test over 9,000 miles (14,483 km)
of ocean.
Fred Rebel was a carpenter down on his luck and had fled his native Latvia in
the wake of revolution to arrive in Australia just in time for the Great Depression
to start. After a series of successes and failures in his new country and the sight
of thousands of his host countrymen clearing out to the bush, Fred decided to
move on towards California. So with no job and little over 100 capital, Fred
began the second migration of his life, this time by small boat.
He bought one of the well-known Sydney Harbour 18-footers, a very fast boat
with an inordinate spread of canvas. So large a sail plan in fact that in anything
much more than a zephyr it needed a crew of sixteen burly crew to keep it
upright. It has been accurately described as the most spectacular racing boat
in the world, and the very worst to sail across an ocean. However, this was the
boat Fred chose and he immediately set-about strengthening her and fitting a
canvas spray cover as a crude cabin.
Work on the boat was straightforward, he was a carpenter and he knew about
wood. Navigational preparations on the other hand were an immense challenge,
particularly to a man whose sea experience had been limited to a steamers
stoke-hold. He spent his days pouring over books in the public library until
finally he acquired a 70 year old navigation manual. The librarys atlas from
which he compiled his charts must have been of an even earlier vintage, about
the time of Cooks last voyage by the sound of it, for when Fred later came to
use his charts he found quite important groups of islands missed out entirely.
But his most interesting achievement was in the construction of his navigational
instruments which he describes as follows:
The materials I used for my sextant were several pieces of hoop-iron; a Boy
Scout telescope, price one shilling; an old hacksaw blade; and a stainless steel
table knife. I broke pieces off the table knife to make the mirrors. They had to
be ground optically flat, which I accomplished by melting a lump of bitumen on
to them for finger-grips and by rubbing them over emery-cloth laid on a piece of
plate glass. I used three grades of emery clothcoarse, medium and fine and
finally I gave the steel a mirror finish by rubbing it on a damp cloth with red
oxide (or jewellers rouge). The hacksaw blade was for the degree scale. I
chose it because of its regularlycut teeth and because I could bend it into an
arc. I also chose the radius of arc so that two teeth made one degree. I took the
temper out of the blade so that I should be able to reshape the teeth, and for a

tangent screw I took an

ordinary wood screw: that
would engage nicely with the
hacksaw. This way I could
read half-degrees of arc
straight off the teeth of the
hacksaw. But half a degree
of latitude represents 30
nautical miles and you need
far greater accuracy than
that. So I enlarged the head
of the screw, and subdivided
its circumference by sixty.
Thus I was able to read to
minutes of the arc off the
screw head itself , that was
the hardest job to make.
A chronometer was
essential. Fred could not
make one so he did the next
best thing and bought two
cheap watches (each as a
check on the other) for a few
shillings. He wrote I slung
them in gimbals, so that the
motion of the boat could not affect
them.
Another essential
instrument handmade was the
taffrail-log. He wrote, I made my
spinner from a bit of broomstick,
to which I set aluminium blades
at such an angle that the spinner
would turn once for every 12 in
(305 mm) of passage through the
water. For the indicator I adapted
a little clock, gearing it down so
that every minute on its face
should mean I mile of distance
sailed. When I tried this log out, I ABOVE LEFT: The instruments made by Fred Rebel.
ABOVE: Fred using his home made sextant.
found there was a slip of 20 per

cent; but an error in a nautical instrument does not matter, provided it is constant,
you can allow for it. And until the time when the works of the little clock corroded
with the sea air and water, this taffrail-log served me well.
Fred left Sydney in his boat Elaine on 31 December 1931 and arrived in
America one year and three days later. This narrative is not intended as an
invitation for you to rush out and start looking for the perfect 18 ft (5.5 m) cruising
boat. The experiences of Fred Rebel are included to illustrate just how small
some boats are that people have acquired when choosing for cruising.
You do not have to intend to set off around the world when you make the
decision to adopt the cruising lifestyle. Weekend sailors can enjoy their cruising
just as much as long distance sailors. As with all endeavours there seems to be
a perceived (in my experience often erroneous) pecking order among cruising
folk. Do not try to emulate the singlehanded, three times around the world
person, if that is not your thing. Cruising can be enjoyed close to home equally
well. You can adopt the sensible attitude that you will gradually extend your
cruising grounds as your experience and other circumstances permit. What
has this to do with choosing for cruising? In my opinion it is a big factor. So
many peoples cruising plans have come to grief because they felt obliged to
overstate and then overreach their own sensible cruising goals.
Cruising will mean different things to different people; your cruising may be
coastal in nature and all undertaken within 100 miles (or less) of your home
port. You may prefer gunkholing either locally or in some nearby cruising ground.
If on the other hand you are going to make that world girdling voyage, then you
will need to give even more serious consideration to selecting the right boat.
Of course many successful voyages have been accomplished in unsuitable
boats, but here we are trying to avoid depending on large slices of luck. Choosing
just where you intend to cruise may be one of the hardest decisions you will
have to make. Being honest with one self will play an important part in this
decision. It is always more romantic to dream of far off locations than it is to
admit to yourself (and friends) that what you would really like to enjoy is some
local cruising involving minimum hassle and maximum relaxation.
Where you intend to cruise will definitely influence your choice of boat. As
you read each chapter you will be able to relate various types of hull
configuration, keel types, accommodation layouts etc., to a particular type of
usage. Some boats are suitable for sailing in many and varied locations, while
others are more specialised. This book will try to guide you through these areas
of choice.
You will find that cruising people are often very opinionated; in some ways
this is what gives them the confidence which in time combined with experience,
makes their cruising successful. As soon as you mention to any one remotely
connected with the sea that you are planning a cruise in your own boat you will

receive a myriad of advice. In the following pages I have tried to sort out not
only the type of advice you should consider but also to alert you to the questions,
to which you will need answers. Without previous experience, intending cruising
folk can sometimes be led to at best, choosing an unsatisfactory boat, or at
worst creating the conditions that lead to a disaster that will put paid to their
cruising ambitions forever. Some of you may have met individuals who have
tried cruising and failed; all that follows is my attempt to guide you and your
family to a successful cruising experience that will last as long as you all find it
rewarding and enjoyable. You will notice the frequent mention the word family
throughout the text; family can mean wife, partner, children and perhaps even
one or more pets. If you do not consider the family from the very beginning then
your cruising experience will be short lived. The most common story related by
those who have tried cruising and failed, is one where it was assumed that the
entire family would share and enjoy the type of cruising you have in mind. This
attitude leads to frequent arguments, or worse; sometimes desertions and
separations at the first port of call. As mentioned earlier, cruising people are
often opinionated and as such will often recommend or decry a specific product,
being more than happy to make
sure you note the brand name. I
too have often recommended
products or services by name, but
be warned; in this changing world
where takeovers of companies
are common place, the quality of
products often change for better
or worse. Make your own
enquiries and compare products
etc.
This happy couple Herbert and Petra
Fritz built their Roberts 53 steel sailboat
themselves. Herbert made everything
with the assistance of talented friends.
Recently I met Helmut Haas and his
wife Angelika who have retained me
to design a custom a 78 ft motor yacht
- Helmut informed me that he was one
of those friends mentioned above - it
is really a small world !
Herbert and Petra sailed around the
world starting from their home country
Germany - they called at our Marine
Park boatyard in Australia.