Phil Bolger used to do a feature in Small Boat Journal where readers would send him a letter asking about
boat designs. He would reply with a discussion and with what he called cartoons
. These were drawings to illustrate
his points of discussion. Many of these letters and responses were collected into the book
Boats with
an Open Mind . In that book, the letters and responses were lightly edited
, and if the cartoons had
been developed into working drawings, those were used instead of the original cartoons.
One in particular caught my attention. It was a letter from Tony Groves which originally appeared in Small Boat Journal in November 1987, issue 33. It asked about a pair of seaworthy single-handed schooners, one for him, one for his wife. Bolger's response was a delightful little double-ended sharpie with a bald-headed knockabout gaff rig. Unlike his light schooner, this one carried enough ballast (in the form of 100 lbs of lead in a drop keel) that Bolger deemed it sufficiently seaworthy to sail between the Southern California mainland and Santa Catalina Island.
Unfortunately, though, the boat was not quite what I was looking for. For one thing, at 19 feet 4 inches long, it would not fit in my 18 and 1/2 foot garage. Also, it was an old-fashioned plywood on frame, glues and screws boat. If Bolger had still been with us, I would have dropped him a note asking about the possibilities of modifying his design to address these issues. Sadly, he had decided to take his leave of this world 2 years before and was unavailable for consultation.
Having built a few boats and being an autodidact in mechanical engineering and composite structures, I decided to try modifying his design myself. This is the story of the modification and the construction, launch and sailing of the resulting boat.