In a previous article in this magazine, I wrote about re-envisioning an Amity Raid Boat which I called “Chimera”. I mistakenly stated she was my last build. Sometimes situations change and “Chimera” was always a compromise. The necessity to be rowed resulted in a hull shape of minimum wetted surface and round hull sections, not ideal for generating power when sailing. Having just had a grandson and the onward march of time “Chimera” was never going to do what we wanted. She simply did not have the form stability. In reality “Chimera” was a backward step from the previous wide, stable, powerful “MissUnderstood” which also featured in this magazine. My wife and I still like to race and we needed something stable, similarly we hope to teach our new grandson to sail so we needed something similar to “MissUnderstood”.
As I have stated in the past, I have always admired the Mini Transat 650 sail boats and more recently the Open 40 sail boats and the new “Scow” designs. Amazing boats. Unfortunately, time and tide wait for no man and there was no way I would get to design and build a 40-footer. My compromise was to design and build a “Mini” version. Completely different to anything else out there. A scow in that she had a shallow, wide hull with beam well forward but by virtue of her short length she needed to be able to sail over the waves. She is 5.150 metres overall but has a considerable bow over hang. The bow knuckle being at the height of the topside chine with a result that the bow knuckle was about 50mm above the waterline and she had a static bow overhang of 550+mm which enabled me to give her a “proper” bow rather than the very wide scow bow. She is more like an open 40 or open 60 than the Mini Transat 650’s. This overhang resulted in a lot of reserve buoyancy and a static and healed waterline shape reminiscent of the open 40 designs. Initially I used the Tri-Star dinghy mast I had been carrying around for over 25 years but even with double spreaders this proved too soft for the powerful hull, so I built a second mast using a 16-foot skiff mast section. She is an innovative boat getting better and better with each sail. She has huge stability, and we have sailed her with 4 adults. The cockpit is enormous and the interior simple with just a bean bag for fit out. You can’t stretch out length wise but with her slab topsides and 2.4 metre beam mean you could lay and sleep athwartships. She’s a great boat for old and young people being stable and forgiving. I got her as low on the trailer as I could and can get her to the boat ramp and fully rigged ready to go in under 30 minutes. Her name was an amalgam using the “C” for Colson with a connection in history with my 850 “Cynosure” and the fact she will be my last being conceived and built during the days of some serious health issues which have truncated my life expectancy. Cyonara was built in a multi-chinned form using Tasmania oak Dowling for the chines and gunwales with 4mm structural bracing plywood fibreglassed in two layers of 200-gram woven basalt woven fibreglass cloth set in epoxy resin all bought through Boat Craft Pacific. The two layers of basalt were both done using peel-ply. There are different suppliers of the basalt cloth and different qualities but Boat Crafts was the tightest weave and the most stable. The Tasmanian oak Dowling was used for the gunwales, chines and stringers. Backfilled with epoxy glue. The Dowling allows any compound curve and is light and strong when back filled along each side with epoxy glue, a true “timber composite”. The frames are 6mm plywood which are minimized in the cuddy cabin and doubled up with 30mm x 25mm laminated cedar frames across the bottom and up to the chine. The result are shallow flat surfaces in the cuddy when moving around. The inside of the cuddy floor/hull was then laminated with another 200-gram woven basalt cloth up to the chine. Whilst flat panelled multi-chinned I induced panel curvature by laying 6mm Dowling on top of the flat sections of the hull panels and pulling the plywood panelling down over the Dowling. The result being contoured plywood panels the gaps along the frames were then backfilled and coved with epoxy glue. She comes in under 400kgs rigged with outboard, so we don’t need brakes on our trailer. She is 5.150 metres over all and 2.200 metres beam. She has twin kick-up rudders with a tie bar and single tiller. The centreboard pivots up into a case and has minimal ballast as the stability is all hull form. She’s taken a little getting familiar with but wow, once we learned to sail her flat on a reach, she is truly awesome and up-wind so powerful. In 15 knots full sail one of us is usually sitting on the cockpit floor. We boat-for-boat race “Tokoloshe” a very well built and sailed 550 design of mine and are more than competitive with the RL24’s at the local club. The rig is a maxi-roached mainsail for low centre of effort and a self-tacking jib with the tack out on a short bow sprit. We have a couple of code Zero furlers, the largest being masthead and that’s it. The sails are by Gary and Jamie Saxby at UK Halsey in Brisbane and are truly fantastic.
We are so happy with her. Built under a tarp, “old-school” in our front yard the finish is not gel-coat perfect but good enough. She was never meant to be a piece of furniture and the more you use them the more you realise they need to be simple to rig and easy to sail and you must be able to do it single handed. I can have her from my home down to the boat ramp rigged and ready to sail in under 30 minutes.
No, she is not a fully decked out cruiser but the twin access hatches, full width cuddy and 2.60-metre-long cockpit make for a great and easy boat to sail. I can dream about the 40-foot version!