Why a Folkboat?

This was the design choice of Blondie Hasler and Val Howells for the first singlehandeded transatlantic race in the year of my birth. Since then JESTER, ERIN and other Folkboats have given good account of themselves as tough little seaboats. 

Years later, Australian grandmother Ann Gash sailed an equally ageing Folkboat from Pitt Water to the UK and back, mostly solo and with an unreliable engine. I had the great fortune to meet her after she cleared customs from New Zealand. I was struck by the pairing, boat and sailor, both were fearless and modest yet enduring. By the close of her later life sailing career, Ms Gash had also voyaged to California, Perth and completed eight Tasman Sea crossings.

History reveals that the "peoples' boat" has a fine reputation among the hardiest of sailors. 

And yet, are these not just external reasons? The real reasons for choosing this design are apt to be hidden deep within my breast. Was it that lack of heel as my son and I tumbled aboard from a jostling tender for the first time. I recall glancing overboard to check whether we weren't sitting on the bottom. She held the water with attitude, certainly no pink frock there. 

Her sheer too. From that pert firm bow a generous dip well past midships, then a powerful square stern. A Herreshoffesque  stern with heavy curved rudder, the long tiller protruding forward over the counter.  Knowledge that below the waves lies a keel; solid, broad and long. 

Overhead a slender simple fractional rig. A cockpit, not cavernous, but functional, balanced. A coach-house sculpted by an artist to counter perfectly the shape of the hull, low, gently curved. Headroom carries no truck at sea, where her slender form will ensure harmonious passage through wind and wave.