Hello,
I just got back from a week in France, at their Semaine du Golfe festival, where quite a number of participants slept on their boats. The best cockpit tents that I could see were on Drascombe Coasters.
Douglas Hopwood (long time Drascombe owner) aboard his coaster seemed to have got a place for everything and the whole art of camping aboard down to a tee. I guess that comes from practice, but his cockpit tent certainly looked the business. I would imagine there was standing room inside, or close.
He explained to me that the Drascombe Coaster really only works well as a camping boat if you have the cockpit tent. It gives you room to keep all the wet oilskins and other things that you dont want to get rained on, but dont want in your cabin, once you have anchored up for the night.
His tent looked like it was made from sprung glass fibre arches, similar to those found in modern tents. This gives more headroom out wide than a simple boom tent, though it would certainly cost more.
We are going to be developing a cockpit tent for our BayRaider, and also for our Trouper 12, so I would appreciate other peoples ideas/experiences.
Ventilation? Light? Lack of double layer (flysheet) is that a problem?
Best wishes,
Matt