Offshore dinghy sailing... why not?

Earlier this summer Paul Larsen teamed up with Pete Goss to put their lightweight and super-speedy 30ft tri to the test by head -banging their way around Britain. Aside from one avoidable setback... the Marc Lombard design came through pretty well

There were a number of reasons why Pete [Goss] and I wanted to do the classic 'Visit Shetland Race' — aka the Round Britain and Ireland with its famously spectacular and demanding course. While the primary objective was to win, this went hand in hand with the aim of giving a sound demonstration of the SeaCart 30 as a fast and capable offshore short-handed ride.

We could not think of a better race to do this. The course is simple... 'Around Britain and Ireland and all outlying rocks'. The race starts and finishes in Plymouth with 48-hour stopovers in the south of Ireland, the Outer Hebrides, the Shetland Islands and the lower east coast of the UK.

The SeaCart has been primarily used to date as an inshore racer. I personally had no opinion as to whether the boat was capable of handling the rigours of offshore racing short-handed but figured it was worth finding out.

For offshore sailing the boat has some strong pros and cons. A perfect example of this is beam. As far as tris go it isn't overly wide. This gives it the advantage of being very manoeuvrable, easier to unstick in sloppy conditions, easier to structure as the bending moment in the beams can be alleviated with lower stays and reducing sheet loads. The ultimate cost, however, is the reduction in righting moment and less overall power than a wider boat.

To read the remainder of this and many other articles, please purchase your copy of the November 2006 edition of Seahorse International Sailing available at selected newsstands or by calling: + 44 (0) 1590 671899 or by email at: info@seahorse.co.uk

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