Interesting blog called Chine bLog. Many links to and discussions about traditional small craft. His latest post includes a world map with links to specific regional craft featured in previous posts. —Eds

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Just got a phone call from our friend Sven Yrvind. His boat is coming along nicely and he tells us he's planning to head for Cape Horn sometime next year. There are lots of valuable bits at Sven's site--many applicable to our more conventional little boats. --Eds

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Here's an active and interesting boatbuidling and design blog. —Eds

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If you've never read Jack London's essay on small-boat sailors, you might find it interesting. --Eds

It begins:

SMALL-BOAT SAILING by Jack London

A sailor is born, not made. And by “sailor” is meant, not the average efficient and hopeless creature who is found to-day in the forecastle of deepwater ships, but the man who will take a fabric compounded of wood and iron and rope and canvas and compel it to obey his will on the surface of the sea. Barring captains and mates of big ships, the small- boat sailor is the real sailor. He knows--he must know--how to make the wind carry his craft from one given point to another given point. He must know about tides and rips and eddies, bar and channel markings, and day and night signals; he must be wise in weather-lore; and he must be sympathetically familiar with the peculiar qualities of his boat which differentiate it from every other boat that was ever built and rigged. He must know how to gentle her about, as one instance of a myriad, and to fill her on the other tack without deadening her way or allowing her to fall off too far.

The deepwater sailor of to-day needs know none of these things. And he doesn’t. He pulls and hauls as he is ordered, swabs decks, washes paint, and chips iron-rust. He knows nothing, and cares less. Put him in a small boat and he is helpless. He will cut an even better figure on the hurricane deck of a horse.

 Read the rest here.

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Neat footage of Matt Layden design under sail.

 

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If you'd like regular updates of the posts at this blog--without having to come here and check--you can subscribe using an RSS feed. 

This new blog doesn't have the obvious button to subscribe, but it is RSS enabled just the same. To subscribe, click on the feed icon in the url window of most modern browsers (far right of the address bar--see that little"RSS" or blue logo?). The actual feed url is http://www.smallcraftadvisor.com/our-blog/feed/ Let us know if you have any trouble. -Eds

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For those of you trying to figure out how to post photos here on the blog or over at the message board, contributor Captain Howie has been kind enough to publish an informative tutorial. Click here and have look. Thanks Howie! -Eds

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Blogger Scott B. Williams has a report and photos featuring some smaller boats at the St. Pete's Stictly Sail show at his blog. —Eds

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From Contributor Norm Laskay

Small boats have always been about doing more with less. The Everglades Challenge is a great example of that still going on. But, things are changing as science and innovation pull many ahead and leave wood and canvas behind. While I can’t say that I will see all of the following in my life time (at my age the finish line is just around the next bend, or maybe more appropriate for a nautical blog, just over the horizon) these changes to small boat sailing are in the not to distant future.
 
In the last five years I have seen a great leap in vessel electronics and electrical systems. In the yacht sector a pristine classic used boat loses value because it doesn’t have the electrical wiring to support large integrated nav systems, entertainment systems, computers and microwaves. Commercially, a tug or pushboat that may have had two 30 KW generators now will have two of 60 KW or larger.  A supply boat that would have two 99 KW’s will now have two or three of 350 KW.
 
The future is electricity. Or, maybe more specifically for small boats, batteries.
 
Solar panels will continue to get more efficient and more powerful for a given square area.  Batteries will continue to get more efficient and more compact, with larger storage capacities. Meanwhile, the equipment run by electricity will continue to get more efficient and more compact.
 
I can see a small sailboat with an integrated navigation system. A lap top and GPS running a chart plotter and autopilot. A mast-top sender providing wind speed and direction to vectoring software interconnected to the GPS and autopilot. I know some small boat sailors already have some of these onboard.
 
While electrically powered anchor, halyard or sheet winches are not necessary on our small boats, I can think of times single handing when it would be wonderful, and the safe thing to do, to control any one of those winches from the cockpit with a remote control device.
 
The iPod is already playing Handel’s Water Music, or maybe La Mer. Or, maybe some old cuts from Aqualung.
 
The night lighting is all approved low draw LED.
 
At anchor the GPS anchor watch guards you while you read by modulated LED lighting or watch a DVD on the laptop. In the right location you may even be online via a wireless air card.
 
While a fan or two might keep things comfortable, I can’t see a small boat with the capacity for air conditioning, electric heat and electric cooking.  There are limits to electrical storage and high draw appliances. I guess for the frost-biters I could add electric socks and gloves.  A little further into the future, as the study of electro-magnetics and atomic power progresses, a hollow core rudder would be a great place for a nuclear powered generator.
 
You already have your cell phone and mounted or handheld VHF.  You may have a SPOT rescue/message device, or what I prefer, an ACR Resqfix personal EPIRB. The latter has dropped $50 in price in the last year so it or its McMurdo counterpart may become very affordable in the future.
 
I would not be surprised if bits and pieces of what I mentioned here might show up in some sailor’s homes in the next few weeks. Others might show up years in the future but they will show up. (Well, I’m not sure about the nuke generator in a rudder).
 
Have a safe and family filled holiday season. May you in the south get in a Christmas or New Years Day sail and may you in the north remember all the great sails of last year and plan the ones ahead.

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Interesting tidbits on little boats at the Baywood Navy site. Our friends down in the Morro Bay / Los Osos area have a saying that they "don't sail in water deeper than they can stand in." Even so, there's a dramatic little tale right on their opening page. It begins...

Near Tragedy on Back Bay

My son, Daughter-in-law and their two children aged 5and 3 wanted to go out for a paddle on September 20th.  As is usual for families with young children it took us a while to get ready and we hit the water at Coleman Park around noon.  We had done a car shuttle so that my Subaru with the trailer for the larger canoe was at 1st St. in Baywood Park and planned to paddle down the bay ending there.

They were in a 17 foot tandem canoe with a center seat.  I was paddling a 17 foot marathon canoe. It’s very narrow and fairly tippy, but I have a number of years of experience with it. As we left Coleman the wind was getting pretty brisk. We proceeded across the channel to the end of the sand spit and turned south.

We took a couple of hours letting the kids out to play on the sand several times.  When we were across from Baywood Point we headed across the bay.  By now the wind was around 20 mph. (Story continues here)

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