Plan Study: Nanoship (Revisited)

Plan Study: Nanoship (Revisited)

- John C. Harris

I’ve been on a crusade to get sailors back to describing boats by displacement and waterline length. It’s a lost cause on the same scale as Esperanto. Since the 1960s, length overall is how boats are positioned in the marketplace, taxed by the state, and allotted space at the marina.

If you pick up a pre-1950s yachting magazine, it’s normal to read an entire article that never once mentions a boat’s length overall. You read about a “20-foot waterline sloop,” or, especially in the British press, a “two-ton cutter,” with little more detail.

Waterline length and displacement tell you whether the boat is long and light or short and heavy. This brings us to the subject boat, which has a 10' 8" waterline and displaces 1000 pounds in normal trim. Without looking at a single photo or drawing these numbers should tell you that we’re describing a very large, high-volume boat occupying a small footprint.

That was the design brief for “Nano- Ship.” (So named as it was supposed to function as a little sister to my “PocketShip” design.) The marketing slant describes it as a compact camp-cruiser or daysailer capable of rough crossings in competent hands, yet small enough to tow with your Subaru and park in a one-car garage.

All of this is cheerful reading and true in fact, but there’s more to the design story. When I initiated the NanoShip project my desk was stratified with layers of correspondence from sailors of retirement age desiring small sailboats, but who no longer wanted to operate such boats while sitting on the floorboards. “Give us bench seats in our small boats,” went the chorus. “Our knees hurt.”