Thanks Tony,
MINIMALIST CRUISER would be a good headline.
Top safety staying as top priority, lightweight trailering next, good sailing performance then. Basic comfort, sure, allowing two people to cook and eat their meals sitting upright and have enough dry area to sleep aboard for a week and dry their clothing a bit. Looks? Rather like GRATIS than like a Drascombe Coaster.
Best cost efficiency comes from re-using and re-arranging proven modules.
The BayRaider GRP hull is there ready, it is fully tested and proven, and being almost mass-produced it is available in quantity. Same applies to rudder, centreplate, rig and sails.
The first idea would be a hardtop retrofittable to the open BR. This could be something in the shape of the sprayhood, but a bit longer and with a (canvas or rigid) door. But then one realises that such a hardtop behind the mast would make working the mast very awkward, and would prohibit the mast from being lowered in the tabernacle hinge.
Putting the tabernacle onto the hardtop roof to overcome that would result in the rig and sail having to be shortened, and the hardtop requiring a compression post underneath, etc.. Complications and costs there, and new RCD/CE testing.
On the other side, putting a hardtop over the stern would not require structural changes. The mizzen mast is a spear type and in two parts anyway, so one could make it longer for very little money.
That stern hardtop could also be in two parts, telescopic lenghtwise. To fit two basic berths underneath will be tricky, but not impossible. The tiller/rudder could be connected to a yoke again, like in the SeaRaider, works very well, and the engine could be left petrol, or exchanged for an electric one. A table can be clipped onto the tiller. In connection with the foldable sprayhood and a basic cover between sprayhood and stern cabin there would be a very large dry central cockpit and space underneath. Costs: for that stern hardtop only, no structural changes are required to boat, rig, sails. Especially, if the stern hardtop was made out of a lightweight foam sandwich material, I would see it would rather aid the uprighting properties of the boat further, so no major difficulties with CE testing must be feared.
Any other ideas out there how to turn the BR into a minimalist cruiser?
