West Wight Potter 15 vs Peep Hen 14

A Round 1 Minicruiser Madness match-up

---

Editors note: Well, our Mini-Cruiser Madness competition is underway. Many of you called it “brilliant,” some of you called it “fun,” and at least one of you called it “stupid.” Maybe you’ve all got a point. But one thing is for certain, it has stimulated a LOT of discussion about the pros and cons of various boats which—if you will recall our introduction article—was really the point.

Most of you who object to the format seem to think we should’ve matched boats in more “like” groupings, but we’re not sure this would’ve worked any better. If we paired closely-matched boats in round 1, they would eventually compete against quite different boats in round 2. Of course we could have made this contest about some smaller number of extremely similar boats with nearly identical purposes, but our idea was having 32 trailerable cruisers battle it out instead—in this case we thought random pairings made more sense.

Some of you seemed to think comparing a much larger trailerable to a smaller one wasn’t fair, but if you’ll remember our suggested judging criteria, bigger isn’t always better. Boat design is a study in opposition with most virtues being antagonistic to another—larger more commodious boats are usually more difficult to trailer, rig and launch, and so forth. As evidence just look at the results of our first poll, where the smaller Mariner is cruising to victory over the larger Aquarius. Some of you have complained it’s “apples and oranges” only to go on and explain why oranges are so much better—that’s perfect!

A few of you were shocked or otherwise disheartened we failed to include particular boats—and we anticipated this. Again, see our introduction article. We simply picked 32 popular trailerable camp-cruisers knowing there are 50 or 100 more we could have chosen. Keep posting your suggestions and we’ll consider these designs next time.

OK, back to the Madness!

As a reminder, here are suggested criteria.

• Performance

• Seaworthiness

• Accommodations (suitability for camp-cruising)

• Trailerability (and rigging, launching ease)

• Appearance

• Quality/Value

—Eds

---

Here’s a fun battle between two famous micro-minicruisers. If you’ve never seen one in person you might expect the shorter Peep Hen is the smaller boat—but not at all. In fact where the Potter weighs in at 475 pounds, the Peep Hen goes 650 pounds.

The renowned Potter 15 is certainly one of the most popular boats among our readership—inexpensive and accessible but offering just enough space for some comfortable cruising.

When we reviewed the Potter 15 we wrote: Originally designed by Stanley C. Smith for a singlehanded crossing of the Atlantic, the jaunty, pug-nosed Potter’s legendary reputation has grown with each new voyage of daring. Two of the most notable took place in the 1970s. John Van Ruth sailed his Potter, Freya, 2700 miles from Mexico to Hawaii in 1972, and a few years later David Omick navigated the Inside Passage from Seattle to Alaska.

But the most mythical of all Potter feats involved the boat’s designer and a voyage he undertook on October 12th, 1965. Having boldly offered to hand deliver one of his 14-footers to a customer in Sweden, Stanley Smith set out across the North Sea that October day on a wild 36-day adventure that very nearly cost him his life. Despite enormous trials, he remained impressed with the little boat’s performance. He wrote: In all ways the boat handles beautifully in reasonable conditions—fast and exhilarating in a fresh breeze, close-winded and hard to get into irons.