PLAN STUDY: Crow

I see nothing around me. Georgian Bay, slow to warm this season, is blanketed in thick fog. It is cold and damp in the exposed cockpit, but I’m sailing from inside the warm cabin of my 15'-8" camp-cruiser design, Crow, comfortable in a T-shirt.

- Roy Schreyer

With a 6'-8" beam and drawing just 10 inches, Crow offers a lot in a little sailboat: A pram bow that helps create more volume than most under-16' sailboats; shallow draft that is achieved with two bilge keels and a single leeboard; a comfortable cabin with 54" of interior headroom, and a queen-sized berth, large cabin windows, a generous cockpit and a yawl rig with tabernacle-masted Gunter main.

In addition, Crow offers two 32-inchwide settees, positive flotation in six sealed chambers, a portable toilet, electric power, generous rocker fore and aft…and she’ll sail to windward in less than 14 inches of water.

The idea for Crow had been in my head for 20-plus years as we enjoyed our old sailboat, Whisper, but thought about improvements that could be made. After undergoing a surgery and going a bit stir-crazy, a friend suggested that I make a model of the boat I’d been imagining. Great idea! A cereal box was soon transformed into a tiny pram-bowed boat.

The model complete and looking great, a full- sized version had to be built. There was little money available for materials at the time, but no matter: Our Can-Am Dinghy Group has members who are proud of their quick-and-cheap builds, so there was hope. Old pressure-treated deck lumber was salvaged free; I picked up some exterior-grade ply for $20 per sheet, and used drywall screws and construction adhesive to hold it all together. Better building materials would have been “better,” but putting off the build until it was affordable wasn’t an option. (The lumber I used was sound, and everything looked fine as the build came together, so at this point I’d recommend the “cheap-build” approach to others.)