The smaller the boat, the bigger the fun... 

Crossing the Thames in Lillie

 ...so many cruising sailers say, usually as they nurse their drink in the bar, gazing fondly at their large and relatively luxurious yacht. They tell tales of their first boat, and how tiny, uncomfortable and enjoyable it was. Though they seem in no hurry to downsize now...

Despite both of us (Daphne and William.  I'm William, a.k.a Bill) having sailed since our teens, it took us 30 years to buy our first cruiser.  We hired a few times in the Marlborough Sounds and the Bay of Islands, and the Norfolk Broads. This was all BC - before children. With children, a wooden sailing dinghy - Cirrus, a Sunburst - became part of the family. Sunbursts are safe, forgiving but reasonably fast. With a small jib, they are designed for family sailing and Cirrus came on most of our summer holidays. After a week or so tramping in the bush with friends, we'd head to a beach campsite and enjoy sun, sand and sailing, and introduce our trampers to dinghy sailing.

Later on, crewing on a friend's 10m keeler across Cook Strait and in the Sounds helped satisfy the need to sail.  When the girls grew old enough for holidays without us, we hired a Noelex 25 in the Mrlborough Sounds.  It was big enough, we thought, for D, I and our son.  We were surprised and delighted when the girls asked to come.  We were even more surprised - and delighted - when the 5 of us, all adult sized, had a great week with no arguments.

Lillie - our first cruiser

When back in the UK for some time, we bought 'Lillie of Pin Mill', a 19' SeaWych bilge keeler, and sailed on the East Coast based on Southend on Sea, on the Thames Estuary.

Like many small cruising yachts, Lillie is fibre glass, 30+ years old, and solidly built. In good condition, she was inexpensive to buy and to run - if you restrained yourself in the chandler!

Very roomy inside, Lillie was in theory a 4-berth; in practice she made a comfortable two-berth cruiser.

The porta potti lives under the square cushion during the day.  At night we put it in the main cabin and the infill cushion made a good sized triangular double bed, with plenty of headroom.

The chain locker is in the bow, and almost every cushion has a large unlined locker underneath - masses of storage room!

We added multi-position table, curtains, cushion, storage netting, plate and mug storage etc.

At first glance, the sink is in a crazy position. In practice it was brilliant. During the day it was covered by the lid to make a step. The open hatch over give full headroom when cooking or washing up.

We loved Lillie dearly, and she was a proper little ship with many big ship conceits: hawse-pipe and kingpost, chain and chain locker, jackstaff, flag halliard, life-ring, king-post, large roller-reefed genoa (bigger than the main) with winches, log and depth sounder, ventilators, big lockers, spray hood and dodgers - the list went on.

Lady Stardust - Farr 6000

Lady Stardust is a foot longer than Lillie, but much beamier and carries the wide beam further aft. This gives her a much bigger cockpit and main cabin (the two can be almost joined when sailing); the fore cabin, although about the same area as in Lillie, feels much more cramped because the larger foredeck means the deckhead comes down earlier. I don’t like that, though D likes the more private loo in there.

In theory Lady is 5-berth and can work well for a family or 4 or 5; she's comfortable for two,  iIn some ways Lady is more dinghy like - lifting centreboard, she’ll plane, no winches, built in buoyancy (and should be unsinkable) - but we day-sailed with 5 adults as comfortably as we could with 3 in Lillie, the pop-top roof gives more headroom at anchor and the fore-hatch is useful.

 I think we’ll find a big difference is that Lady was designed by a top designer, Bruce Farr, and built by boat-builders, whilst Lillie was the only boat the designer drafted, and was built at Bicester. Farr 6000s are raced as much as cruised, and Lady should be fast when we’ve learnt how to handle her. She also has newer sails which are 26% bigger (although both boats much weigh the same) and a newer, bigger outboard - and a trailer so we can pull her from place to place with our new 9 year-old 4-wheel-drive car. And I’ve already filled several pages with lists of improvements...