OTHER DESIGNS BY MATT LAYDEN
Matt's first home-made microcruiser (pic
1), Terrapin, was 16' long and had a
6' beam. With a fully battened mainsail and toed-in
leeboards, she was reportedly quite fast to windward. She was
cruised extensively along the North Eastern seaboard of the United States
and she worked reasonably well. However, one day in the cold
waters off the coast of Maine, the small flat bottomed boat experienced a
severe knock down in a fierce storm. The boat went to 90 degrees
and stayed there, supported only by her buoyant mast. When the winds
abated, Matt righted his craft, but the experience started him thinking
about a better and more seaworthy design. This new
design became Swamp Thing (pic
2). She was 13'-2"
long and 44" wide, and she proved to be a novel sailboat because she did
not have a centerboard or a leeboard. Instead she employed specially shaped
external chine logs, which Matt called chine runners, to prevent
leeway. These chine runners also had the added benefit of not picking
up lobster pot lines or sea weed, which proved troublesome with the
leeboards on Terrapin. Swamp Thing
proved to be a great success overall, and
she was sailed all the way from Matt's home in Connecticut to the
Bahamas and back. The only trouble Matt experience during
the entire trip occured one very rough night in the middle of
the Gulf Stream when he was standing on deck signaling his presence with a flashlight
to a nearby passing freighter. As luck would have it, the great ship
passed too close by and the subsequent wake upset the already confused 10
foot seas. This ultimately caused the little boat to be
knocked onto its side. Unfortunately, Matt then grabbed a chine
runner for support, and that finally pulled the little sharpie over and on top
of him. Nonetheless, the diminutive micro-cruiser was soon righted in
the tepid waters off Florida, and Matt continued
uneventfully onto the Bahamas. After this long
cruise, Swamp Thing was given away to a friend,
and the construction of a larger version began. This sharpie
became know as GJac (pics 3-5).
GJac
was 14' 10" and was similar in concept
to her predecessor. However, though she was larger, she still did not
have a great deal of cabin space for her size.
After about a year, Matt had learned as much as he could from
this boat, and he went on to build Little
Cruiser, which had much more comfortable
accomadations. This 15'2" micro-cruiser was sailed as far North as
the Bay of Funday and as far South as the Bahamas in the three years
that Matt cruised aboard her. Eventually, we came to own this
wonderful craft as well as her sister ship, Swamp
Thing.
Note: The leeboards you see
in the pictures of GJac were added by a later
owner.