Tread Lightly

The length came from the shop. A 15 ft building space takes a boat of about 13 ft and still leaves room to walk around the ends with the doors shut. From there the brief was comfort rather than endurance: Welsford refuses to put a customer in a coffin-sized shelter, so sitting headroom and enough light to read by were minimums, which works out at about 2 m by 0.75 m by 1.05 m for an average skipper. A month of food at 2 kg a day and a week of water at 3 litres comes to 81 kg of consumables, and with skipper, ground tackle and camping kit the load is over 200 kg before the boat is drawn at all.

The smallest practical cabin cruiser in the range at 13 ft, with a 5 ft beam and 123 sq ft of sail. Ballasted to 300 kg including the centreboard and drawing 8 in with it up, so she can be trailed behind a small car and beached where a keelboat cannot go.