Boats That Should Have Been Included
Let's work on the list for the next Mini-Cruiser Madness
Some you have already been talking about the next Mini-Cruiser Madness competition. Maybe this crazy concept will become and annual event. A tournament focused on trailerable sailboats would’ve seemed absurd at first glance, but then National Grilled Cheese Day is an actual thing and every year folks in San Francisco ride public transportation half-naked to celebrate No Pants Subway Ride day, so anything is possible.
We expected and received plenty of pushback on the 32 designs we chose for this first tourney. I wish I could say an esteemed panel of judges painstakingly considered the virtues and popularity of various small boats, finally settling on a metrics-supported “best” group. In truth, Marty and I just threw together a list of boats that came to mind and met four criteria: At least reasonably popular, trailerable, often camp-cruised or cruised—and this last one was especially important—we had already test-sailed and reviewed them and we had access to photos.
In hindsight we’re not so sure our having test-sailed the boats is important, as readers are voting based on their own experiences and preferences, and we can probably cobble together some text and photos even for boats we don’t have direct experience with. Perhaps next time around we can include all of the boats that advanced to round 2 in this contest and enter them with a batch of 16 new entries.
With that in mind, let’s look at some of the boats you’ve already mentioned you’d like to see included:
The Bayraider 20
Vivier Ilur
Core Sound 17
Bolger Micro
Caledonia Yawl
Com-Pac Legacy
Balboa 20
And here are a few more we’ve thought we might add:
Welsford Navigator
CLC Pocketship
Vagabond 17
Hirondelle
Hunter 18.5
Nimble 20
Victoria 18
Corsair 24
What boats would you like to see included in a future Mini-Cruiser Madness? Let us know in the comments below.
Grilled cheese is boring and really could be an everyday occurrence, where as a "NPSR" could be an exciting event with maybe more eye candy than a boat show! of course there will always be the "derelict vessel", such as myself, that you really didn't want to see and had to turn away from to save your vision! Just saying...
My thought is that all the boats mentioned are worthy of being included in the next bracket challenge. I really enjoyed reading everyone's thoughts on various boats. Keep up the outstanding effort y'all have put into this really fun exorcize. Thank you.