After a couple of years trying, we finally managed to find a trailerable sailboat that meets our needs and our budget, and within a reasonable travel distance. She's a 2000 model 15-foot West Wight Potter, hardly sailed at all, but kept in the first owner's small front yard in Albuquerque for 10 years. So she was dusty and a bit sunburned about the rub rail, but overall in excellent condition and available at a fair price. Now named Poco Caliente ("Slightly Warm," for her hull color, her residence in New Mexico, and the new owner's craving for chile peppers) , she's reigning over our own front drive while we ready her for her first sail under her new, and only, name.
The Potter is a compact mini-cruiser, if you wish to use her so, but in our case, she's just a comfortable, cozy, stable, easy-to-handle day-sailer, perfect for teaching grandkids to sail on the fairly open waters of the Potomac River and Chesapeake Bay. And, with her small cabin, she offers a bit of shade and privacy for potty breaks and even naps.
I have tried several times previously to buy a Potter. One of my favorite web sites is called SailingTexas.com, where sailboats from all over are listed for sale, at no charge to the seller or buyer. There have been a few Potters listed in the last few years, but there always seemed to be some issue or other. One seller wanted to know just why I thought the Potter was ideal for my purposes, and was extremely suspicious of my intentions when I mentioned that I would arrange to pay for the boat in any manner he requested. Clearly a suspicious offer. Other Potters were just too far away, or too expensive. So, a nice Potter, on offer in Albuquerque, was hard to resist. And I'm happy I didn't.
Other Boats
We sold our 27-foot Hunter about three years ago, with the intention of replacing it with a day-sailer on a trailer -- thus eliminating the long-distance worries of having a substantial boat in a marina two thousand miles away. While the Hunter was a really nice boat, given her age of over 20 years, and we did some major maintenance and upgrades (all new through-hull fittings and hoses, bonding the electrical system, new water pump, new bilge pump, new running rigging, etc) there was always that nagging worry that Jolie Blond might just sink at the dock or fall off her hardstands, if I were not there to keep an eye on her. The marina where we kept Jolie Blond was very reliable and well-equipped, but eventually chased off many of their customers when new owners took control. So, with our boat on the hard for a year or more, I just cleaned her up and sold her.
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| 1981 Hunter 27 "Jolie Blond" |
After selling the Hunter, I decided to build a boat for use on a lake where one of our sons-in-law has a summer home. This was a 12-foot Mini-Cup, with plans provided free by Stevenson Projects . She's essentially a Sunfish or Sailfish type with a tiny cockpit, suitable for legs and feet only. She's pretty simple, built of 1/4" plywood for the most part, and it seemed to be a project that should take a month or so of part-time effort. In fact, I found a website provided by another builder, who, apparently with little woodworking experience or tools, took about a year to build his. At a cost to him of about $1200. I thought I should be able to beat his time, since I'm retired and have a shop full of tools. Two months, at most. Sixteen months later, This Side Up went into the water in Virginia. An at a cost of about $1500. But she's a blast to sail, and goes like a rocket with two people on board in 8 knots of breeze.
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| 12' Mini-Cup "This Side Up" |
Our only other sailboat was a 14-foot Flying Junior, a racing class boat popular in the Mid-West. The boat was fully equipped for racing, with hiking straps, tiller extensions, and other class-accepted accouterments. We didn't race her, just day-sailed on lakes around Omaha, NE, and on the Gulf coast. She was fun, fast, and easy to sail, and the builders were exceptionally customer-oriented, replacing our cast aluminum goose-neck within a couple of days after I managed to break it through sheer stupidity.
Additions and Upgrades
While I love sailing and boats in general, I really love working on boats just about as much. Our old Hunter, 20-plus years old, provided plenty of scope for boat-work, and the Potter is almost as much fun. Many Potter owners have modified their boats, sometimes to the extreme of a complete change of sail plan, so I have followed a well-worn path in working on Poco Caliente.
The first challenge I had to deal with was the companionway hatch cover. Since the boat was 10 year old, and had been kept outside all that time, even though under a cover, the hatch was warped and the teak plywood was weathered badly. It was salvageable, however, so I sanded it down to good wood and applied braces made from mahogany. Then several coats of spar varnish, and the application of a carved logo, and the hatch cover was ready for business. 
Since we plan a long cross-country trip with Poco, I thought a motor mount on the trailer would be a good idea, and to that end have built one of sturdy plywood, oak, and fiberglass. The 3.5 horsepower Nissan motor weighs only 29 pounds, but, like all outboards, tends to be greasy and sooty and not really welcome in the well-kept cabin or mini-van interior. My solution is mounted on the vertical beam of the boat trailer, just below the winch. The motor clamps to a fore-and-aft mounted slab of fiberglassed plywood, and the lower unit is supported by an oak bracket. 
The Potter apparently came with no dedicated support for the mast during travel. While there is a pulpit at the bow, and the butt of the mast can be tied to it, I thought better support would be in order, and support for the boom along the mast line would be even better. The boom fits into the cabin, but just barely, and the aluminum tends to mark up the white vinyl of the cabin cushions. So, a bow support the for mast and boom, mounted on the pulpit, would provide the forward support. To support the middle of the mast and the aft end of the boom, I devised a simple gadget to hold the spars above the cabin top. The supports are built of ash and maple, with PVC providing the vertical support for the mid-point support. This latter is padded with rubber, and held down to the cabin top with tie-downs to the shroud padeyes. 
The tricky part of designing the forward support is getting the angles right, since the two "vertical" bars of the pulpit are not vertical at all, but slope forward and outward. This just took rough measurements with a protractor and trial and error. Once the angles were roughly correct, then the issue became that of sawing out the openings to hold the mast and boom. This was a tough prospect as well, but I finally resorted to a coping saw to make the rough cuts, and a Dremel tool with a coarse grinding bit to finish the openings. The openings for the mast and boom are padded with 1/8" rubber (plumbing supplies at the hardware store) glued down with Shoe-Goo (TM). The wood is finished with 3 coats of spar varnish. I'll use Velcro straps to hold the mast and boom down to their supports for travel. | |
| Jib halyard running to cockpit |
I want to be prepared for sailing Poco single-handedly this fall. In a small sailboat, it is difficult to leave the tiller for more than a few seconds, even with a tiller-tamer, so I thought it wise to make all the controls available within reach from the cockpit. For the most part, this entailed leading the (new) main and jib halyards to the cockpit. I purchased deck blocks, cheek blocks, and camcleats from Duckworks Boat Builder's Supply (www.duckworksbbs.com) in Texas (outstanding service and excellent prices for small boat builder's supplies and hardware). These required drilling holes in my boat, always a scary experience, and mounting the hardware to lead the halyards down to the aft bulkhead of the cabin, clear of the companionway and still allowing crew to rest against the bulkhead in the cockpit. While the hardware I used is pretty light-weight, I do not anticipate sailing in heavy weather, and the fittings are mounted with proper backing plates through the cabin roof and bulkhead. While I was at it, I mounted a couple of horn cleats on either side of the companionway to hold the halyards under sail.
Storage on a boat this size is always an issue. While we have no plans to sleep aboard Poco Caliente, except in some sort of minor emergency, There is always a certain amount of gear to be dealt with. Probably more so in my case, since I tend to be a belt-and-suspenders type where boats are concerned. In addition to the anchor and rode, gas tank for the outboard, fenders, lines for docking, the Federally mandated beer cooler, tools, life jackets, paddle, porta-potty, and other essentials, I tend to want to take binoculars, a GPS, a portable VHF radio, a hand-held compass, a cell phone, and spare socks. So I felt a need to provide a storage space for these last items. I constructed a binocular box of 1/2" oak, and a set of fabric pockets to hold the other items (not the socks). These I mounted to the inside of the cabin rear bulkhead with heavy duty Velcro, so they can be removed for replacement or when in the way. The other stuff, the fenders and such, will just have to live in a plastic storage box, in a canvas hold-all, or loose in the cabin. I do intend to construct some sort of mounting system for the anchor (when I buy an anchor). Probably attached to the aft end of one of the cockpit rails, since I do not relish going forward to deal with an anchor in anything beyond a dead calm, when sailing alone. This does add complexity to another problem with Potters, that of too much weight in the cockpit, and not enough forward, to keep the boat sailing on its designed lines, especially with the motor hanging off the transom. I may just try some weights in the anchor compartment at the bow, to try to hold the bow down a bit.
A couple of other minor mods include a travel cover for the motor, to keep sand and grit from blowing against it while under tow, a bracket for a spare tire, and security for the whole rig while parked overnight in hotel parking lots. The motor cover is sewn from a half-yard or so of heavy marine upholstery fabric. The measurements were pretty rough, but it seems to fit OK. The spare tire bracket was cobbled together from left-over plywood and epoxy, with bolts and lug nuts from a local hardware store. I have made up cables from wire rope to help with security, but the real issues - tow-away theft and security of the motor - I dealt with using a coupler locking device from Reese, and a heavy duty bike security lock along with another couple of locks and chains. (I am pretty paranoid about this stuff.)
Future Stuff
There are a couple of modifications I'd like to try in the future. For one thing, to add storage space, installing deck plates in the cockpit seats is a fairly common modification, and one which would add a lot of utility. End of boom sheeting, replacing the standard mid-boom sheeting for the main is another common mod. I do intend to install a jib downhaul, led aft to the cockpit, to help me get a jib under control in a sudden blow. I installed on on the Hunter, and found it quite useful a couple of times. Finally, for sailing in mid-summer New Mexico, a bimini of some sort is just about mandatory. Even on the East coast a bimini is comfortable. We had one on our Hunter, and it was rigged early every season and used constantly.
I'm excited about this new boat, and look forward to sailing her for years to come. And I hope to instill some of my own excitement in my grandkids, some of whom are already experienced power boaters (stink potters!) and canoeists courtesy of their dad, an obsessive fisherman. There is certainly a degree of confidence and relaxation in having a boat I can move around on its trailer without a car, if necessary, as opposed to a boat that needs a Travel-lift to park for the winter and several thousand dollars per year just to keep in or near the water. Sure, we don't anticipate cruising to the Bahamas on our Potter, but how many people, with boats three- or four-times the length of ours actually do?
