This section of our web site is dedicated to West Wight Potter sailboats and those who sail them.

We recently jointed the ranks of the So Cal Potters, a wonderful group of laid back but intrepid small boat sailors, shortly after purchasing our own 19 foot Potter.

Follow link below for log entries from the Slow Dance

Log of the Slow Dance

Ty doing the "Potter thing". Photograph by Donna

Photograph: The 19' West Wight Potter "Slow Dance" (because sailing is a slow dance with the sea). On her way to Anacapa Island from the Channel Islands harbor. Photograph by Dave & Francesca Kautz on "Tilly Lucy"

Some Personal Sailing History

Slow Dance is not the first sailboat we have owned or sailed, but was chosen to be our current boat for a variety of reasons, which I would like to share with you here.

First a little history, so you know where we're coming from.

Ty has been on the water since early childhood. The family lived in Bermuda for three years and owned a 28 foot wooden sloop which was sailed around the Bermudas. Interestingly this 28 footer had about as much room inside as the 19 foot Potter and I will talk about this a little later on.

Ty's first sailboat was an 8' pram built from a single sheet of marine plywood by his father. Construction of this boat was later covered in a now out of print book by Ty's father, Anton Husak, named The Salt Water Craftsman. The Husak family was living on the bay front near the small fishing village of Seadrift, Texas and the pram was Ty's primary means of transportation from the house into town during the summer vacation months.

After about 5 years, Ty's family sold the bay front home in Seadrift and moved aboard a schooner for two years. The Schooner was named the Ya-Wim and was 65' on deck - about 75 feet overall. We lived aboard and sailed this boat around the Texas coast and in the Gulf of Mexico. During this two year period, Ty also sailed as crew on a Cal 25 for weekend races including one gulf race from Galveston to Corpus Christi (an interesting trip in a 25 footer being pushed hard).

The schooner was sold in Rockport, Texas, renamed the Mariposa and taken to the Caribbean for charter work. The family moved into a house and two smaller boats were acquired, a 17 foot Luger and a 35 foot trimaran. These were Donna's first sailboats and marked the beginning of sailing for her.

Some years later, we (Ty & Donna) moved to Houston and acquired a 22 foot MacGregor and sailed this boat around Galveston bay for a few years (the same area where Ty raced on the Cal 25). This boat was trailerable and provided some experience for us in rigging and launching a boat that would be near the top end of practicality for a trailerable sailboat. For the first year, this boat was kept in a marina on Clear Lake.

About 9 years ago, we moved to Southern California, sailed a Lido 14 for a couple of years and then recently acquired the Potter P-19.

Ty's Philosophy on Small Cruising Boats

Armed with some personal experience in boats from 8' to 75', I have developed a philosophy on small sailboats, capable of weekend cruising in coastal waters. Here are the highlights:

• When deciding on boat size (length) it is probably better to go a little smaller rather than larger. Larger boats are more difficult to rig and launch and cost more to maintain and store.
• Shoal draft is very important. Some trailerable sailboats have centerboards that do not retract fully into the hull. This means that the trailer must carry the boat higher and that also makes the boat more difficult to launch. Also, as we learned in the MacGregor, the centerboard pivot can be damaged, even with the board all the way up, if the boat is beached or grounded.
• Slip fees have gotten very high in many parts of the country - easy rigging, launching and towing will make less expensive stowage possible.
• Mast height can be an important issue if there are bridges, or other obstructions, under which you may want to sail.
• Construction of the boat's hull, especially thickness and quality of the glass if it is fiberglass, the way the deck is attached to the hull and the design and quality of the rigging are important if you are sailing on anything other than a small lake.
• Accommodations are important, but are a secondary consideration to seaworthiness and the ease of launching.
• If you can keep your boat on a trailer, you will avoid having to have the bottom cleaned and repainted each year, or so, and also avoid the possibility of getting "water blisters" between the layers of fiberglass on a glass hull. For wooden boats in warm water, you have the added worry of worms getting in the wood and turning your planking into Swiss cheese.
• If you are planning on using your boat primarily for cruising, rather than racing, a smaller rig is better than a larger one. The difference in performance is primarily noticeable only in lighter air since the top speed of the boat is ultimately determined by waterline length (in non-plaining boats) rather than the amount of sail she can carry.
• The cost of maintenance on a boat increases exponentially with its length. This includes the amount of time the owner/crew must spend cleaning and polishing.
• If you are planning on blue water sailing (or even on a large lake or bay) you should be able to quickly and easily adjust the amount of sail you are carrying.

This brings us to choosing the West Wight Potter P-19 as our current boat of choice.

About the West Wight Potter

A history of these interesting small boats is available on the West Wight Potter web site: http://www.westwightpotter.com/  You will also find diagrams of the boat's layout, sail plan, etc.

There are two basic designs for this boat, a 15 footer and a 19 footer. I haven't sailed the 15 footers, but have seen them sailed and they seem to sail well. We have been sailing the 19 now for only a little over a month. The following are my impressions of the boat:

• The boat has a lot of room in it for a 19 footer. This is substantially less than we had in the MacGregor and what had be eliminated was a settee and larger galley section. The P19 does have a small galley and a folding table can be rigged. There is really only seating for two (three if you have a skinny butt) inside the cabin. There are four berths in the 19 - a V-berth in the bow and two quarter births under the cockpit seats. The quarter berths are small and tight. They would work well for small, non-claustrophobic, children, but I personally have difficulty rolling over when laying on one. They are great places for storing gear.
• The P-19 is a very dry boat to sail, mainly because of the high freeboard. This doesn't mean you're not going to get some spray in the cockpit when sailing to windward in a chop - you will - and that is true of any boat in this size range. You can get plenty wet in a 75 footer when the weather gets "interesting".
• The hull on the P-19 has hard chines and a V-bottom, unlike most fiberglass hulls. This does a few things for you: It's gives you more room inside and makes the boat "stiffer" meaning it heels over less when sailing than other boats with the same amount of wind. The flat bottom sections and hard chines probably do detract from the performance of the boat as far as speed goes and can occasionally make it pound when going to windward in a choppy sea. Still, for a pocket cruiser, the benefits are greater than the losses.
• The boat is very easy to rig and trailer for its size. At about 2000 pounds, it tows easily and it's very easy to forget that it is back there in our Ford Expedition.
• For our boat, we can push it to about 6 knots before it starts feeling overpowered and we need to reduce sail, especially when sailing to windward. We currently have a working jib and "lapper" but not a genoa. She would make better speed in light airs with a genoa and we will add that to our inventory one of these days.
• The hull is well constructed and I feel comfortable for coastal cruising here on the West Coast. It behaves well what weather we have seen so far. We haven't been in a real blow in this boat (and will try not to be), but I would expect her to do well.

I will add more to these impressions as we gain more time on the boat. One of the most important points for us is that the boat is easy to rig and launch, which means we will actually sail it more than one that is more difficult. It trailers well and easily so we can haul it just about anywhere we want. It has adequate room for an overnight trip for two or day sailing for four. The boat will inspire confidence in any new sailors and will hold up well at sea.

Recently we sailed the boat, with other So Cal Potter folks, to Anacapa Island in the Channel Island group off the California coast. More on this in the Log of the Slow Dance.

Log of the Slow Dance