Our Club Fleet

Merganser

Merganser - Wayfarer sailing dinghy

This is Merganser, a Wayfarer sailing dinghy owned from new by the HSC and the second club boat to be aquired by the HSC. Does one of our members know the age of the boat? - 30yrs? 40yrs?. It is in good condition considering that it has been on an estuary mooring every summer and has been stored out of doors almost every winter. In the picture it is shown with the original varnished spruce mast. The mast was varnished each spring and was scraped and sanded to bare wood a number of times, it must have ended up a bit thinner each time. Eventually the boat was rolled over by a gale while dried out on the mud then it filled and capsized when the tide returned, and this broke the mast, at least that is what we think happened. The wooden mast was then replaced with a Proctor racing alloy mast.  

See here for a U-Tube video clip of Merganser sailing in the Roach during 2009.

Meander

Merganser - Wayfarer sailing dinghy

This is Meander, a Wayfarer sailing dinghy purchased second hand by the HSC to replace Whimbrel, which was another Wayfarer dinghy which was purchased new by the HSC but which became a total loss after breaking up in high winds on a lee shore near Clacton.

Merganser was purchased with a old outboard motor which soon died, but we never really needed it since these boats sail well even in light winds and they carry oars for when the wind fails completely.

Meander has a slightly different layout to our older Wayfarer Merganser. There is an open storage space between the fordeck of Meander and the front bouyancy tank. This means that the foredeck is unsupported and I think that is the reason that the builder made the foredeck as a sandwich structure with a balsa wood core. This is stronger than a simple fibreglass laminate if it is in new condition but this type of structure is susceptable to delamination and water absorbtion. We have had some problems with this foredeck delaminating but it has been repaired and strengthened so should be ok now. 

Woboat - the HSC tender

woboat01

This splendid vessel is Woboat our club tender. It ferries our members and their gear to and from our Wayfarer dinghies on the moorings at Paglesham. A passer by amused me with the comment "with a boat like that you be carefull  you don't wo on the woks"

It is a useful little boat, lovingly rebuilt from a complete wreck by one of our members. It rows easily, turns corners almost too easily and is fairly light to carry up the hard.