May 16, 2006 - DARE TO BE DIFFERENT- Unusual Cruising Craft
by Michel & Jane DeRidder

Magic Dragon is not a run-of-the-mill boat, which perhaps explains our weakness for vessels belonging to others who choose to try out their own ideas when it comes to their choice of a cruising home. We have had the good fortune to encounter over the years boats that stand out in the cruising fleet for various reasons - design, practicality, performance, appearance, novel ideas. The following is a mere sampling of some of these unusual craft.

We were thrilled to get to know John and Fran on Ninth Charm, a 38-foot Dick Newick "Native" trimaran. We'd spoken briefly to John as he topped up water jugs while we were taking on duty-free fuel in Opua, New Zealand. Fellow Canadians, they too were cleared to leave that day, and for the same destination, Vava'u, Tonga. Their boat had seemed so insubstantial, so delicate, so light and graceful out there at anchor that we worried about them as the days passed and following winds ripened into gale force, unsure as to how the seemingly fragile boat could cope in such winds and seas. Seems that they too were concerned - but about us - old fogies out in this shit! How relieved we were to find them in port when we arrived, proud of our eight-day passage. Having arrived a good two to three days ahead of us, they were more relieved to see us than we them.

Magic Dragon and Ninth Charm together at anchor.

Their tri, so unlike our load-bearing beast, fascinated us. We carry everything in great volume. They never take on anything without getting rid of something of equal weight. Ninth Charm moves in a whisper, accelerating instantly in zephyrs, outrunning the wind. She can also speed frighteningly fast in heavy wind. As a contrast, although we make fast passages in good winds, we are under-canvassed in light air. (However, we carry large reserves of diesel fuel.)

John and Fran used to disappear from outer anchorages to return to Neiafu in order to take part in the Friday evening races, usually arriving at the finish line well ahead of anyone else. Not by any means a new design, one of this series of early racing tris, using a Tillermaster autopilot for self steering, won the Route de Rhum single-handed race in 1984. Coincidentally, Ninth Charm and a circumnavigating sister ship Naga met up in Port Vila a few months back. Like us, John built his boat himself, taking seven long years of spare time to perfect it while he ran his business - whereas Michel whipped ours off full-time, long hours, in fourteen months from lofting to initial local cruising. We became mutual admirers and fast friends, and still keep in close touch. They are in Gizo at time of this writing, with plans to continue on and on.

China Cloud.

Another vessel we admired because of its unusual owners and far-out concepts was Allen and Sharie Farrell's memorable engineless China Cloud. With her lug-rig masts characteristically askew, with lee boards and soaring stern, she was just one of several Chinese junk vessels that we've encountered over the years. But this one was a junk with a difference. The Farrells built their unusual craft on the beach on Lasqueti Island, British Columbia without the use of power tools, and using almost exclusively driftwood collected from beaches. Allen used axe and saw to shape a scavenged fir log into a keel. He used chunks of yellow cedar to form the ship's forefoot, stem and sternpost. Old creosoted planks became floor timbers. Logs of fir, red cedar and yellow cedar furnished planking and decking. They moved the logs on their own, towing them under sail behind their 14-foot dory. Some of the planks were sawn by a friend in the islands using a mill that consisted of an old car engine and a circular saw. They used grayed driftwood roots of giant cedar trees to make knees.

China Cloud under sail.

"I'm not really into power tools, I don't like the stink, the noise or the dust. An axe is my number one tool," explained Allen. Seems a double-bitted axe, a hatchet, saws, hammers, a brace and bit, hand drills, a hand plug cutter, rasps, and planes were the tools of his artistry. The Farrells completed the 42-foot craft in two and a half years. China Cloud's super-shallow draft made her particularly appealing to them to hide away in sheltered shallow anchorages for their old age. Her fine finish and warm burnished wood interior added charm and beauty. China Cloud was the last in a series of boats that Farrell built, forty in all, if you include the rowing skiffs. "I don't loft anything," he liked to point out. Instead he carved a half model, from which he took off the sections and profile, laying the measurements directly on the planks "...when any changes can be made just by whittling." Allen had an artistic eye and an innate aesthetic flair. For more details track down the article in Wooden Boat magazine, December 1985. There are also at least two books about the Farrells, as well as countless articles.

	Regentag.

Then there was Regentag (Rainy Day), Frederick Hundertwasser's old Mediterranean salt ship, sailed out from Europe after having been given a new lease on life in Venice shipyards with the replacement of first the bow, then the stern, and eventually the middle section. A world-renowned artist, Hundertwasser is particularly well known in European countries where most of his original paintings and architectural creations are to be found. With her once varnished hull, almost everything off-centre, striped sails, woodsy funkiness (for example, all her wooden newel posts were differently turned - no two the same) Regentag was for many years a familiar sight in the Waikare Inlet, opposite Opua in the Bay of Islands. He had a base in the Waikare area, up a mangrove channel accessible by dinghy at high tide. On our first visit to New Zealand we met Frederick on a beach with a lovely girl on a cold winter's day. We asked them aboard for cocoa and cinnamon toast. The ensuing friendship, renewed whenever we returned to the Waikare, lasted until his death two or three years back. His lasting legacy to New Zealand, his chosen home, is in Kawakawa in the form of a loo! "Visit the World Famous Toilets," say the road signs. Tourists flock in to use the facilities, designed and built under the supervision of the artist, in his characteristic style of turf roof, handmade tiles, colourful columns, and glass bottles inset into some of the walls. After his death, Regentag (last sighted on a truck driving south on No. 10 Hwy.) was shipped back to Frederick Hundertwasser's native Austria, where we are told it is now on permanent public display.

Dutch Wing.

When we heard tell of an unusual sailing trimaran that had sailed into the Whangarei Town Basin to take up a berth between two pilings, tacking up river and sailing smartly sideways by manipulating its carbon fibre wing sail, our curiosity was piqued. We came across them hauled out at one of the smaller local shipyards, and took advantage of the opportunity to closely examine the vessel and chat at length with the owner. One of a group of five Dutch vessels of various designs sailing together around the world, it was fascinating to discover this boat's particular strengths and many departures from the norm. The owner had built her from scratch. The hulls are slippery with a long flat run aft and dagger boards. The wings, a main wing and its trim tab, are very light skin structures made of carbon fibre with no internal masts. They are mounted onto a balanced hollow boom that pivots freely over the cabin roof on a large bearing base. The wing load is controlled strictly by adjusting the angle of the trim tab in relation to the angle of the main wing. When the angle is nil, the entire unit just feathers into the wind, offering little resistance - and it is free to rotate 360 degrees. For engine power the vessel has a central diesel driving a hydraulic pump and two retractable hydraulic propeller legs that fold up neatly under the tri's side bridges like an aircraft's landing gear. When the legs are up, the propellers are accessible for cleaning etc. under small deck hatches in the upper side of the decks! This vessel has a bipod radar mast over the pulpit, and a clever dinghy hoist tripod built into the lifeline. We were told that she sails well and fast. Only the two bigger ketches in their little fleet could outsail it, and that on broad reaches where they could fly big spinnakers in lighter air.

Dutch Wing sail details.

What we admire more than anything are boats that are forerunners in a wave of new designs. Steve and Linda Dashew's Deerfoot and Sundeer designs were far out in the forefront in that regard. It was in the mid-seventies that we became acquainted with the Dashew family, beginning with a chance encounter with Steve's dad. We later met Steve and Linda in California through the Liggetts. We have for years been following their departures from accepted yacht design with fascinated interest. Then we were fortunate to be able to sail with them on Beowulf in Maine a few years back, a mind-boggling, thought-provoking experience. We followed the construction of their 'un-sailing' boat Wind Horse in New Zealand over the months that she was a-building. It is people like the Dashews, with their willingness to try the untried, who push the boundaries and make the difference.

Wind Horse.