Make your boat easier to sail

The late Jim Mottram explains modifications to make his 23-footer easier to sail. Here are just some of his tips from the archives

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When I bought Reservation, my Elizabethan 23, in 1980, it never occurred to me that we'd still be together years later.

Just a few months before I'd lost my Corribee off Portland Bill and, although the Elizabethan was not quite as handsome, she was the most suitable boat I could find for the shallow waters of Christchurch Harbour.

Although only a little longer, she seemed much larger, her maximum beam being further aft at the main bulkhead instead of by the shrouds. She'd been completed by her owner and, to be fair, for a dentist rather than a boatbuilder he'd done quite a good job of her. She later passed to a second owner but was then sadly neglected.

Although only five years old when I found her, she was in a poor state with delaminating hatch covers and the bilge full of water.

This I did not mind as, being a boatbuilder, I was able to replace the woodwork to my standards.

She was a pretty boat but to my mind, spoilt by the barn door of the transom, so after a few years I cut this out and glassed it back in, slightly recessed, to allow the surface to be clad in iroko.

With my dislike of sprayhoods, I fitted a curved breakwater on the cabin roof instead. These two features transformed her, and now she is often mistaken for a wooden boat.

Engines, oars and furler

The Stuart Turner engine was a different matter, and I sometimes wonder why I put up with it for so long. It was always going wrong and often would not start. In the end, I set rowlock chocks into the cockpit coamings. The length of the oars was restricted by the stowage arrangement, under the lockers of the forward berths.