Leaderboard

Mine is the CS 17 MkI. Cranked up with no particular wind and wave, I get close to 7 mph with a boatload of gear, I think. I seldom find I need to travel that fast. I was able to make fine headway and maybe 5 mph into a 20+ mph headwind and 2-foot or so waves on Rainy Lake a couple years back when sailing didn't seem like such a great idea. I use the little prop that came with it. While you're discussing shelters: I bent some bows I got from SailRite into a dodger shape and took the canvas to a shop for a dodger that pulls up and fastens in less than 30 seconds. Then I went back to the shop a couple years later and got a tent that fastens to the back of the dodger and makes a complete enclosure. I didn't try to cover the back of the cockpit. I have a sleeping platform to keep me up out of the bilge, and I can just pump out the water when the need arises if it rains in the cockpit. The picture attached is from the canvas shop parking lot, using stub mast instead of mizzen. It works great. I just fold the whole thing up forward with the dodger when I'm out sailing and unfold it to camp.

Just grabbed a couple of shots I took while test-fitting my most bizarre addition ever: a companion shelter that will allow me, at anchor, to sit upright inside even in the rain. It folds up and rests uneasily on the forward seat when not in use. But you can see the cabin pretty well. The main hatch slides, while the fore hatch drops into place. The forward window comes out of its slot so that I can more easily access the foredeck through the cabin. In practice, though, I nearly always go forward on the side deck, holding on the the edge of the main hatchway. Lack of headroom is tied with another big problem with my cabin: when I sleep on the starboard side (the footwell on that side is filled with an insert), my knees are trapped under the edge of the forward coaming. This makes it impossible to roll over, for instance, without fully waking up. I just realized that I could lay diagonally (across the CB trunk) more easily, and I'll be trying that out probably in a May trip. Unfortunately, the Mark III came out well after I built, or I'd have a much more elegant boat!