LITTLE CRUISER is our fifteen foot sharpie designed and built by
our friend Matt Layden as a coastal microcruiser. Constructed in 1988,
LITTLE CRUISER was one of his favorite boats and he sailed her
engineless as far North as the Bay of Fundy in Canada and as far South
as the Exumas in the Bahamas. After we acquired her in 1992, we sailed
Little Cruiser to the Bahamas seven more times.
- 30 gallons of fresh water ballast
- Unusual bow centerboard to maximize interior space.
- Mast is supported by struts to facilitate raising and lowering, which
is handy for getting under low bridges.
- Inside steering and reefing.
- Extremely robust construction with a 1" thick plywood bottom.
- Room for two below
- Foam insulation and floatation providing positive
buoyancy
- Balanced lug sail.
- Completion of 8 winter cruises to the Bahamas and intracoastal
passages from Connecticut to Florida and back. This amounts to over
10,000 miles in all!
LITTLE CRUISER was designed and built by an experienced small
boat
sailor by the name of Matt Layden. Over the course of more than a
decade afloat, he traveled aboard many of his home-built boats for
thousands of miles and figured out what worked and what didn't. Though
his micro-cruisers were not fabricated out of any high tech materials,
they were in fact quite advanced in their design. To maximize their
cruising potential, several of his boats employed the use of "chine
runners," while all of them used water ballast and had inside steering.
In our opinion the development of his chine runners were probably one
of his most unique innovations since they eliminated the need for a
centerboard or a keel, and they allowed his boats to sail upwind in
very shallow water. Incidentally, Paradox, GJAC and Swamp Thing use
chine runners, while Little Cruiser employs a bow mounted centerboard.
Another thing that is notable about Matt's micro-cruisers is that they
are sturdily built out of readily available materials. This has ensured
that they are capable of surviving real cruising conditions. In the
case of Little Cruiser, she is fashioned out of thick AC grade plywood
with a bottom that is a full inch thick. She also has inch thick
framing throughout to support her 1/2" plywood sides and her 3/8" thick
plywood deck. The only fault that we have discovered in her
construction (and it is a minor one at that) is that she was not
covered in epoxy and fiberglass; therefore, the plywood has developed
some checks over time. Therefore, we have decided to sheathing the
whole boat to reduce our yearly maintenence (2005).
Despite this cosmetic shortcoming, we can attest to Little Cruiser's
tough build, and over the years she has survived impacts with just
about everything including reefs, engine blocks, rocks, jetties, docks,
steel pipes and even other boats. Believe us when we say that if you go
sailing you will hit something eventually! We think that our boat's
stout build has saved us many times from sinking, albeit only in a foot
or two of water. For instance, on our 1998 trip to the Bahamas we hit a
reef while navigating a narrow passage between two islands at dusk.
When we checked the damage the next morning, we noticed a ugly looking
3/8 inch deep gash that was at least 8 inches long in the bottom. Thank
goodness Little Cruiser had a thick hull or we'd have been pumping from
the get go. Instead, we sailed on to our next destination, and then we
repaired the damage at our own leisure. The fact that our boat was
small and that it did not have a keel allowed us to simply beach her to
undergo these repairs.
After twelve years of owning Little Cruiser, we still believe she is
one of the best boats for the job. She is simple and inexpensive to
maintain, and she tows nicely behind our small four cylinder car. There
have been times when we have considered buying a bigger boat that would
be more spacious, but in the end we realized there were always more
disadvantages than benefits in owning something larger. For us, Little
Cruiser has the best set of compromises that we can live with.
More info
By the way, below are some pages from the original drawings that Matt
used while constructing Little Cruiser for his own personal use.
Unfortunately, he never got around to putting together a set of plans,
but luckily he has given us permission to reprint some of this
information so that others can have some idea of how this microcruiser
was put together. Of course these images are for illustrative purposes only.
They are not intended to be used as plans to build another Little
Cruiser , and this website nor the original author make any promises as
to their accuracy or their suitability for any purpose whatsoever.