Sailing

Here is a fresh picture of Sorcery, my hard-worked, much modified and much-appreciated 1981 Lancer 36', in the Brewer Yacht Yard in South Freeport ME. She will be wintering there 2010/2011, ready for a cruise 'down east' next year.

Designed by Bill Lee - of Santa Cruz Yachts - she is more or less a ULDB (ultra-light displacement boat - 12,000 lbs). An early lighter version Chutzpah won the Transpac twice in the early 1970s. Short cruising rig makes her easy for a single-hander. There's plenty of room below - open plan layout with no forecabin (which is typically useless at sea and used mainly as an expensive sail-locker) - and there is actually a very reasonable sail-locker right in the peak. Having been startled by the layout when I first saw it, I am now amazed small yachts are laid out in any other way. Allows for a full galley, refrigerator and full-size forward-oriented chart table - plus TWO quarter berths and an enclosed washroom and head, to say nothing of the hot and cold running water which still amazes me (when my notions of what belonged on a boat were set by my previous ones - see below).

There is a good deal of debate about the merits of the Lancer 36. Some of the chat on the SailNet.com blog suggests they are a 'slug' upwind and have poorly designed accommodation. This baffles me. No question several of the Lancer boats - other than the 36' - were pretty awful and poorly made. But the 36' will absolutely hold it own against similar boats, presuming it is adequately sailed.

But when all is said and done sailors wouldn't be who they are without major differences in opinion! Every boat is a compromise between the things one wants in life - under different circumstances and so on.

Sorcery and I have been together for an amazing 18 years and I have never once regretted our relationship. Indeed, as I have looked at other boats, especially at boat shows or by glancing into the cabins of other boats at marinas and so on, I am reassured few other craft could have delivered the same quality, performance, and fun. Sorcery is easily single-handed and a delight in heavy weather. Yes, the headsail is generous - but North Sails made me an excellent 150% genoa that rolls up to a third of its size and still pulls us upwind. But for extremis, Harry Morgan (one-time Manager at Brewer Glen Cove) and I designed a storm-sail arrangement, with a small sail hanked and running up a temporary stay from the head of the king-post - itself stayed with a strap to the hull below. I have yet to deploy this sail in anger - but only because I don't spend enough time at sea.

The Sailritesails.com sailplan for the Lancer 36 shows a storm jib - but I cannot work out how it is to be set. Perhaps some other Lancer 36 owner can explain?

Sorcery had a good deal of overdue fixing during the 2008/2009 winter - reinforcing the deck around the wheel pedestal and changing the quarter-berth arrangements to prevent a re-occurrence of the flooding during the 2008 September hurricane. What a night that was!

More refitting work during the 2009/2010 winter with a new holding tank. Now street-legal AND have a gloriously shiny new mast with all the trimmings - actually the old one finally refurbished.

This winter it looks like some new electronics. We had trouble with our otherwise utterly dependable Raymarine RL70C-based system. Apart from dropping fix at awkward moments it woke us at 3 am one morning (anchor alarm) suggesting we were heading North over land at 3 knots! Fortunately it was mistaken.

When Sorcery and I got together in 1993 I had been boatless for a number of years, having left my dear Altesse (below) behind in the UK. I sold her to a young American couple who planned to go off to the Mediterranean for a while.

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