If fifteen years ago when I owned a brand new Pacific Seacraft Flicka, anyone would have told me I would eventually buy a “swimming caravan” like my new TES 678 BT, I would have laughed. Even more likely, I would have called him a fool to think I would buy a boat with no double forestay, no double backstay, only thin shrouds, a light, vulnerable mast—and worst of all—minimal ballast in the bottom of the hull, not in the keel where it belongs. This is certainly not a boat for serious sailing in open water!

What changed my thinking? Why did I turn 180 degrees and own two so very different boats? Here’s the story:

I first sailed on a seaworthy 36-footer in the Mediterranean and immediately fell in in love with sailing and living aboard in romantic harbours and at anchor in lovely bays. But from the first day I disliked the idea of shared ownership. I wanted a boat that was 100 percent mine.

After foolishly following the costly “bigger is better” advice of an experienced friend, my first boat was an old 12-ton motorsailer—and the cause of my first gray hairs! That experience and reading Adlard Coles Heavy Weather Sailing eventually brought me to two decisions:

1. My boat, belonging to no one else, should be located nearby—like in front of my house—even though I’m in the middle of Germany and far from sailable waters. I disliked the idea of it being ten hours away on the Mediterranean, and visiting it only on holidays. So I began to focus on trailerable boats.

2. What made things difficult was that the romantic part of me wanted the boat to be “salty” and capable of taking my wife and me over open waters with confidence. Although I didn’t talk much about it, the dream of long-distance cruising, or even perhaps an Atlantic crossing, was in the back of my mind.

In my search for the perfect small boat I found a tiny drawing and short description of the “Flicka” in a German sailing magazine, along with the builder’s address. Immediately I knew this was the boat for me. Without a test sail or so much as a look at this famous (but in Germany mostly unknown) boat, I placed an order with Pacific Seacraft. Five months later, Daimonion arrived in the port of Genoa, Italy. My dream became reality when she was lifted, all shiny, white and bright, out of her container into the warm springtime sun of Italy. She was everything I’d hoped for and couldn’t find in Germany ( no small-boat-culture here, but that´s another story).

She was strong, perfectly built and sensibly fitted out for safety, with cutter rig, a reliable engine and enough comfort to satisfy my wife: separate heads, standing headroom, wide berths and—because of her strong boat-character—the reassuring feeling of being protected from the elements. I spent hours telling my wife, who was always concerned when the last glimpse of shore disappeared over the horizon, about the safety advantages of this classic long keel-design I was so proud to own.

She was my no-compromise dream boat (I thought) and was just within the weight-limit I could trailer across Europe. Now I could set sail from any coast I could reach by car! The fully equipped boat ended up at 3 tons—without our personal effects aboard. (The technical data showed 2.6 tons, but that doesn’t include the WC compartment and other heavy goodies. With a lightly built alloy-trailer and a big 4-wheel-drive car I could just make the German maximum legal towing limit of 3.5 tons. The important thing was I now owned a boat capable of taking me across oceans anytime I wished to go.

All these virtues of the Flicka were true, but the reality of the following seven years with “my perfect pocket-cruiser” did not quite match my dreams.

To begin with, I never crossed any oceans. We made some 70 NM open-water-crossings from Spain to the islands Ibiza and Majorca, and enjoyed the adventure of sailing through the night in such a small boat. But the distances we traveled and the conditions experienced didn’t require a heavy, strong (and expensive) boat like the Flicka.

Trailerability: Yes, over the years we explored the wonderful Mediterranean coastlines of Italy, Spain and even the Atlantic waters of France and Portugal. But the Flicka is really not a “trailersailer.” She is “portable.” To handle 3.5 tons I had to buy a second powerful car (I loved the Mercedes G-wagon, but that's beside the point). You need a crane and some help even to set up the mast, not to mention launching. And the cutter-rig with 10 stays and shrouds makes setting sails quite a job. These considerations led me to abandon one of my ideals and leave the boat in a port in Spain over several winters.
And “portability” had its price: For what I paid for the extra car I could easily have hired professional boat movers for the handful of times I changed sailing locations. And a professional service would have moved a boat of 7, 8 or 9 metres for nearly the same amount. In retrospect, there never really was a logical reason to own such a heavy and hard to move “small” boat.

Looking back, the most relevant problem was her sailing characteristics’ effect on my “First Mate’s” seasickness. A seaworthy, “seakindly” long-keeled hull of a small boat is not very “kindly” to a seasick stomach! No small boat is really stable sailing downwind. But:

a) The heavy displacement long-keel design constantly rolls from side to side when sailing downwind—much more than a light, flat hull. Ideal wind conditions for small-sailboat cruising became a nightmare for my wife.

b) The small sail area of the Flicka in relation to its weight ensures safety in heavy weather or a storm. But we found we could avoid such conditions most of the time when coastal sailing because we were never far from shelter. In the light airs we experienced for several hours nearly every bright, sunny day, the Flicka was a seasickness “generator.” Even reaching or pointing, the shape of the mainsail in light winds was usually disturbed by a swinging motion of the mast from one side to the other. This happened nearly always if there was a small swell caused by earlier stronger winds, or conditions far away. Consequently, we had to motor when other lighter small boats sailed with more-or-less stable heeling and satisfying sail shape. And running under power was not only less fun, the loss of stabilization from the sails increased the chance my wife would become seasick. (Enclosed a picture of a typical situation: look at the cramped fingers of my wife on the pushpit during motoring along the coast.)

The virtues and and capabilities of the Flicka—in spite of my romantic dreams—had little to do with how we actually used the boat. And her virtues came at a cost of other more ordinary attributes (I don´t say “virtues”) found on much cheaper boats—especially space (for a given weight) and the ability to sail in light winds in combination with some swell—conditions found in the Mediterranean about 90-percent of the time during summer.

In the end, my wife after enduring seven years of seasickness in more-or-less open waters with this classic little boat canceled our “boating contract.” I couldn’t blame her. I wouldn’t have lasted nearly so long if I’d been the one getting seasick every other day.

Still, I didn’t want to give up sailing. I tried my luck, singlehanded, with a much smaller boat. Again I chose a long-keeled character-boat, a wooden British 18-foot gaff-cutter, designed by Laurent Giles I named Durin. She was small, but perfectly fitted out with an inboard diesel, a sea-toilet and even a heavy Danish diesel-stove for colder climates. As a maiden-voyage I made a fantastic singlehanded exploration of the Hardanger Fjord in Norway over three weeks. It was a wonderful experience with great impressions I will never forget.

Sailing happily alone for weeks ( unlike my friends, who can’t seem to spend even one holiday alone), I learned that in the long run I missed the warm, romantic Mediterranean evenings, enjoying a bottle of wine, or even better—two bottles and a partner to share the fun. I always want a boat that can be sailed singlehanded, but I don’t like sailing as a single all the time.

I soon found that, used as a real trailersailer just for me alone, even Durin was to big and heavy. Launching approximately 1.2 tons from a small, rough slipway in Norway was only possible with a half-dozen friendly helpers. And setting up the classic cutter rig with a lot of small strings—no iron tighteners for stays and shrouds—is not just an hour’s job. So launching for just a weekend is not realistic. For me alone, I would buy a lot smaller trailersailer in the future. In the end, Durin was the wrong boat again.

And then one day came the “spark” that turned my opinion about my “perfect boat” 180 degrees. After an 8.000 km? bicycle trip through France, Spain and Portugal my wife emphatically said: To simply wander during the holiday is best for us. This was what she had loved so much about sailing—every day another small port or romantic bay, and another lovely evening aboard. “If there just hadn’t been this damned seasickness .....”

I grabbed the opportunity. “Lets give it one more try! But this time with a completely different kind of boat, and in sheltered waters.” One month later I placed the order for a TES 678 BT.

This last attempt was surprisingly successful. In the sheltered waters between the hundreds of islands in Croatia (Kornati-Islands), the light and responsive boat was fun to sail even in the lightest winds. No swell from open waters found its way to us. While the Flicka and the wooden cutter had to run under engine fifty-percent of the time or more, the new boat only required we use the engine underway a few hours in two weeks, in addition to getting in and out of ports of course.

By absolute measurement, the TES is a poor sailer compared to slim, deep keeled boats like a Sunbeam, a First or even a small Jeanneau: The TES has a high, extremely voluminous hull (that’s why I named her “Daisy”), and has only a centerboard with all the ballast in the hull. This gives her a very high center of gravity. But for me, coming from the Flicka and the small wooden gaffer, she offered unknown speedy sailing, responsive handling, and pointed far closer to the wind (approx. 47 degrees to the true wind). Small channel passages we made windward under sail, tacking happily, not starting the engine like we had to to with the heavy boats under smaller, less efficient sails.

The most important advantage was even in very light winds the full battened mainsail did not lose its shape, and was not “killed” by a swinging mast. The boat was sailable because she was stable at a small but constant heel even in light winds—a benefit of the combination of high center of gravity and sufficient sail area. Believe it or not, my wife experienced not one hour of seasickness. Sailing has a new future for us!

To sum up: I’ve made the choice between sailing a classic character-boat alone in the open sea or an insignificant, but practical design offering sailing fun for the two of us in sheltered waters. The decision was easy, and I got some practical advantages:

• At about half the weight of the Flicka, the TES is trailerable by my regular business / family car. No expensive 4x4 needed.

• The new boat sits lower on the trailer which means much easier trailering due to low center of gravity. A well designed one-hand mast-folding system is standard. I don't need a crane to get the boat ready for launching.

• Not only is the boat more fun to sail in fair weather, there’s much more room in the cabin for spending rainy days with some comfort in the harbour.

What have I lost? Not much: The admiring stares of all the small-boat lovers I saw in nearly every port on my classic boats, and some pride of ownership. But the only real drawback is the restriction in destinations. I would not make 70 NM passages or more across open water. But even this issue is more mental than real. I made only four such passages in the seven years with the Flicka.

Still, I admit—something intangible is missing. Someday, in addition to the “family-boat,” perhaps I’ll own a really small, but capable character-cruiser for me alone, not for crossing oceans, but for cruising grounds in the Baltic Sea or the coastline of Norway—for extended voyages in climates my wife would not like to share. My dreaming of small salty boats has not ended. The study plans of the Tideway 14 and Grey Swan from Selway Fisher arrived yesterday.... •SCA•

Michael Anderson, 59, describes himself as “old fashioned.” He’s been married (to the same wife!) for four decades and has three adult children. Michael’s 25-employee advertising agency kept him “running in a hamster wheel” until he sold it in 1999. Now he’s “50% retired and 50 % working as an independent marketing consultant.” In addition to sailing, Michael enjoys light aircraft and motorcycles.