Going Small

A tiny cruising sailboat has almost become a countercultural symbol

World-cruisers Lin and Larry Pardey said it most famously, “Go small, go simple, go now,” but it’s an enlightened sentiment shared by many others over the years, and it’s essentially our magazine’s not-so-subliminal message.

For me, the “go small” part has always resonated—I like everything about it. Of course a small boat costs less, requires less maintenance and effort, and typically gets used more, but I think another aspect that appeals to me, subconsciously at least, is how a tiny cruising sailboat has almost become a countercultural symbol—it really is the opposite of where most things appear to be going.

I was talking to someone the other day who’d stumbled upon Small Craft Advisor in his dentist’s office. It was especially satisfying to hear from a reader suddenly smitten with the lifestyle described in our pages, who only a day before had no idea our little world of trailersailing and beach-cruising even existed. “I didn’t know there were so many people out there sailing in this manner,” he said enthusiastically.

Even among sailors more generally, we are representative outliers. A sailmaker I know, who has vast experience racing and cruising, laughed out loud recently as I was telling him about me and a friend and our daughters cruising aboard a 15-foot boat. “Four people aboard? Seriously?”

And I’ll never forget waking up at anchor in a different 15-foot sailboat to the voices of a cruising couple moored near us in their 40-footer talking about my boat.

“It’s so cute. Do you think a person can sleep in there?” she asked.

“I suppose you could,” he said. “But would you want to?”

I couldn’t resist sliding the hatch open and popping up to say hello to the startled pair. When my 6' 4" buddy Lee crawled out of the cabin a little later, they were speechless.

The “go now” part is mostly redundant, as it says, essentially, “Use the (probably small) boat you’ve got—not the fancier one you’re planning to get.” Maybe the most famous proponent of this idea was Robert Manry, the newspaper copy editor from Ohio, who in 1964 had supposedly been plotting an Atlantic crossing as crew aboard his friend’s 25-foot sloop. When his prospective skipper was talked out of the voyage by friends and family who considered it “ill-advised,” Manry decided to go it alone in his own boat—a modified 13-foot Old Town Whitecap sailboat called Tinkerbelle.

Of course “go now” also contains another implicit warning—that none of us knows what tomorrow will bring so we’d better get on with it today. Look no further than Robert Manry himself, who died from a heart attack at 52 years young.

—Joshua Colvin

First appeared in issue #114