El Dreamboat

The Ideal Cruiser

I've been living aboard boats for quite a few years now, and for nearly every moment of that time, my mind has been pondering how the boat could be better. What is the ideal cruiser?

Currently, I have a very nice boat, which is a culmination of all my hopes and dreams and a dash of reality. My “El Dreamboat” is a Pogo 40, and I'm going to try to convince you that she is (close to) the ideal cruiser.

I've been running under a fairly basic rule since I started sailing, which is “Float, Go, Live.” It's a series of questions to see if you are ready to let go of the dock and depart. Does the boat have any “float” problems? (and I mean serious ones) If no, then... Does it have any “go” problems? Mast is stout, engine works... Then... Can you live aboard? If yes, then everything else can be fixed at anchor somewhere!

So, looking along those lines... I wanted a boat that wouldn't have many “float” problems. The Pogo 40 has watertight bulkheads fore and aft, a doubled hull along the sides (ballast tanks) and enough foam built into the structure to keep her from sinking in case of water incursion. Also, not a huge amount of leak points. Not many boats are built this way, but I think its an important thing to have confidence your boat won't sink even if you neglect her a bit.

Next up, is the sailing part. If you're going to go somewhere, you want to be able to sail, right? So a good sailing boat is important. In this part, Aquila is not actually good for most people, because she is too performance-ey. The boom is too low, the sails are too powerful, and the boat heels too much. But man does she move! Its easier to make a boat go slower than to make one go faster, however, so I'm pretty happy with that.

At sea, “sea-kindly-ness” is something many folks talk about, usually disparaging fast boats and lauding the full keel heavy displacement older designs. I've not ever sailed on a sea kindly boat. The sea is not kind. It is rough and I get a bit seasick at times and I'd prefer to make the passages last a shorter time.

With Aquila, I was expecting the boat to move a lot, and be violent, and very loud and lots of other terrible things. I was very surprised to find that she is quite smooth. Coming down the coast of Baja California, I had some light winds and huge swell, which wasn't very much fun, and a bit of medium winds with chop and big swell (25 kts 15 ft seas), where the boat was powered up and didn't hardly move at all, except forward! (During that time I hit 16 kts) The boat was loud because we were going so fast, but there was no slamming, and it only became uncomfortable when we crossed Cabo San Lucas and into the Sea of Cortez, where the wind waves became 8 ft tall and very steep that the boat started to buck a little bit.

So sailing-wise, I feel this is the strong side of this boat.

What about living aboard? I consider the idea of living aboard to be at anchor. If you're at a dock, its a totally different story, because your home is more than just the boat. Also, I think of docks as prisons for sailboats. So, there's a bunch of different aspects to living aboard: The dinghy, the comfort of the boat at anchor, How much room you have to walk about or work on projects or lie in the sun, how big your water tanks are and fuel tanks and food tanks and electricity tanks... In fact the list is very long. Oh, wait, there's one more: How long does it take to get sailing from the at-anchor mode?

So, first off: The Dinghy. If you're at anchor, you occasionally need to get to shore (unless you're very strange) In order to do this, you need a floating thing to take you. Where do you store it, what kind is it, how do you keep it from getting stolen? I am a big fan of lifting the dinghy on davits on the back of the boat, and I chose the Pogo 40 (original version) because it has a small swim step on the back which I could use to partly support the dinghy when lifted. I have a pretty nice 10 ft inflatable with a 10 hp motor. The whole thing weighs 150 lbs or so, but I can plane with 4 light people and it works great for going surfing or to shore. Since I have a very big stern section, the extra weight in the back isn't that much of a problem, and the dinghy can stay there, just above the water, while sailing just fine. In fact, I left the dinghy there for the whole 1200 mile trip down the Baja with no problems at all. The waves don't catch up to me, and the stern rises up and keeps the dinghy out of the water. The benefits of this are that the dinghy is in the “ready to sail” mode in about 35 seconds from when I get to the boat with it. Its a very simple system, it keeps the dinghy from getting stolen, or having a bunch of barnacles growing on the bottom, or bumping around and keeping me awake. It was a major factor in my boat selection, and some people are afraid of fat transom boats, but I think it is a blessing, not a curse.

How about Comfort at anchor? Many folks cautioned me against a flat bottomed boat because it would be uncomfortable, and absolutely disagree. Many times when there is some swell rolling through, I see heavier boats rolling easily 20 degrees or more to each side, and I rarely move more than 5 degrees. Aquila moves a bit like a catamaran, with a quicker motion, but since she is so wide, the roll is never very far. I have also discovered that when I fill the water ballast tanks up, the boat weighs a full 3200 lbs more, and then the motion is very slight. On Altair (my previous boat, an Ericson 27) I would roll all the time and usually ran a “Flopper Stopper” that I used to keep the boat more steady, but it would grow barnacles, tangle in the anchor chain, and cause me a lot of time to rig it up and take it down before going sailing.

Another factor of Comfort at anchor is the bow and stern sections and their flatness. I was expecting that every little wave passing me by would make a huge noise and shake the boat, but I was very pleasantly surprised. It turns out, my boat is so flat that the back and the front are about 6 inches under water at the ends, so in fact the angle that the boat emerges from the water at the bow and stern is 90 degrees (vertical). So waves running into me make no noise at all, unless they are a foot or taller, when they can finally get some air under the bow or stern and then it will smash. There are a lot of more modern boats I have seen that have a sloping stern that comes out of the water at a slight angle (like 15 degrees or so) and therefore any waves of any height will smash against the underside of the transom and make noises which keep you awake. Many of the very heavy cruisers are very deep from all sides and therefore are quiet, but they often suffer from rolling, because they are heavy enough to have a resonance with the swell. Anyways, I was expecting this to be an area of “compromise” and it turns out that a boat designed for planing (with a very sharp stern section) is actually pretty good at anchor. Or at least this one is.

I mentioned filling the ballast tanks up to keep the boat more steady, and this brings me to another point, water. Living on land, people use a lot of water in everyday life. I used to have a 10 gallon water tank, so I am very used to being miserly with my water, but, since I'm filling the ballast tanks for the weight anyways... I carry tons (indeed) of water. I think that having a lot of wat er is a luxury, and being able to take hot showers whenever I want is living in high style. Many folks have watermakers, which are a lot of maintenance and, at least in mexico, gunk up really quickly, so I have opted not to go that route. Having a boat that has very small water tanks is a pain, and for the most part, race boats or very fast catamarans are going to not have big tanks. So, I managed to find a good solution, at least while at anchor. Under way, I have about 60 gallons of water in two flexible tanks, and that is enough for a decent passage if I'm careful with my usage.

Now about deck space. I have a gigantic cockpit and a huge foredeck, and all of it is pretty flat, because I don't have much of a high cabintop. It means I don't have a ton of headroom, especially in the front, ( about 6'2” in the back and 5'6” when standing in front of the V-berth bed) But the deck space is great for lifting the dinghy up and working on patching something, or making the floorboard for the dinghy, or fixing the outboard motor, or installing wheels, or making a shade structure and sewing it up, or inviting people over to hang out, or having friends (or family) with kids and letting them stomp all over the deck with the pitter-patter-thunk-whaaaaa! of little feet. (and heads). Since I have waterfront property, the value of real estate is very high. Part of this is having places to stow things that is not on deck. It makes the boat safer while sailing, less likely for things to get stolen, and I think it makes the boat look better to not have stuff tied to the rails. I have a gigantic lazarette that is 14 ft wide and 3.5 ft by 3.5 ft. In this lazarette I've stowed two shortboards, a full size bicycle, all my fenders and dock lines, 4-fuel jugs, a barbecue, a bucket and my freediving stuff. When I leave the boat for the summer I also store the dinghy and motor in there. Its “vast,” in the way David Attenburough says it. I also have a sail storage area behind the head for other things, so I'm pretty well set-up to keep things off the deck.

Many boats neglect storage areas for living spaces. They have three cabins and two heads instead of two cabins, one head and a garage. When you're cruising, you need the storage, but if you have the cabins, you'll be tempted to just put stuff on the bunk with the thought that you can move it if you have company. I think this is a bad idea. The bunk cushion just gets ruined, the cabin ends up being a storage room, and you didn't really want the extra person to stay that long anyways. They should have gotten a hotel and come out daysailing. Mind you, I have two cabins, so I can host a few people, but I don't have three cabins, so I can't host too many people. There is a certain number of folks that fit on a boat overnight.

In terms of electricity and food storage, I think a solar rack (which is also a dinghy davit) is an absolute must. It adds windage and slows the boat down going upwind, and (according to some) is an eyesore, but it also adds shade and (in Mexico) keeps the boat very well powered up. I have 400 watts of solar, and I think I could go up to 800 watts (I have plenty of room for more panels) in the future, or for some place like Alaska or Washington where the sun doesn't shine as consistently.  Also, for Alaska, I will want to add a Dodger that covers more than the companionway.  I've seen one on another Pogo 40, like this one:

I have a freezer and a cooler, in the effort to reduce the number of things that will break, so I use the freezer to make ice and then put the ice in the cooler. Its like a freezer and fridge, except if the freezer breaks, I can buy ice and have a good place to put it.

To finish, I want to transition from the “live” back to the “go”. The point of traveling in a sailboat, in my mind, is to go sailing! I want to have access to the beach, to be able to surf easily, to hear the whales singing while sitting at anchor, but I also want to be able to go sailing, or to take people out for a ride. Its fun, quiet, elegant, and important to be able to go sailing when you want. So how long does it take to pull up the anchor and get moving? Often, I just leave the dinghy tied to the anchor and sail away from it, and it takes about 10 minutes of setting up the sails to get ready in that case, but if I'm going to be leaving an area and taking everything with me, I can turn on the motor and get the anchor up in about 5 minutes, and then get the sails up in about 5 minutes more after that. For coastal cruising, and using the mainsail it might take me 15 minutes total. Its a short enough time that I go sailing whenever I feel like it, rather than having to plan ahead days in advance. I think this is important. If its difficult to lift the anchor, or hard to pull in the flopper stopper, or you need to put all the dishes away and clean the galley and tie down all the gear on deck, or if you have to take the motor off the dinghy, and lift the dinghy and the motor (separately) and tie the dinghy down on deck, if you have to do lots of heavy work then it stands to reason that you won't do it very often unless there is a powerful reason to go, which means you might not go sailing for the pleasure of just sailing as often as you imagine you might. So I advocate making the boat as quick to get sailing as possible, which usually means making the dinghy easy to lift and secure, and get a good windlass that is easy to use.

So, do I have the ideal cruiser? Probably not, in your eyes, but in my eyes, I think I do. I've got a boat that floats and is hard to convince otherwise. I've got a boat that goes very fast and easily, with a smooth motion. I've got a boat that I am very happy living aboard, with my 6 hour hot shower ability and good motion at anchor, along with a quick and easy dinghy lift for security and sailing. I've got my “El Dreamboat!”