life afloat – the boats

The various anchorages at Culatra harbour an always interesting repository – sometimes floating, sometimes not – of historical or beautiful or weird yacht design. A few examples.

Pretty gaff-rigged dinghy, zipping around the anchorage at the end of the day.

Boat Sematary. Many of these still float when the tide comes in, though some do not. None, however, look like they're going anywhere ever again. People live in them, sometimes building shacks ashore to store years' worth of accumulated junk. Not a particularly friendly community.

A Cal 40, one of a historical class . Arguably the most successful production sailboat ever, a revolutionary 1963 design from the board of William Lapworth, today she seems a smallish, discrete, unassuming 40-footer. You wouldn't know just from looking at her that representatives of this design won most of the great American ocean races – SORC, Bermuda, Transpac, Mo Bay and so many others – several times over, in a career spanning many years. A classic, and, to my eyes, a beauty, though classic wooden boat snobs disdain its GRP construction. 

A Colin Archer – or something very like it. I'm not particularly fond of this style of boat – ponderous, and oh so very slow (a production version built by Californian company Westsail was dubbed at the time a Wet Snail) – but they undoubtedly look stylish, even pretty, in an anchorage.

A very good looking custom catamaran – as far as any catamaran can be called "good looking". 
She had one of the better-designed dinghies we saw, though I didn't manage to get a picture. 
Very neat.

Abandoned fisherman's shack in the tidal cove.

The fishing fleet in port, the anchorage in the background. Noble Arquimedes in dark blue on the left, lording it over the characterless plastic surrounding her.

Nimbus, brother Pedro and cousin Pedro aboard.

A proper dinghy, the Nutshell Pram, designed by the late, great Joel White (son of the late, 
great E. B.). The first one I ever saw, after reading about them for years in WoodenBoat magazine – and building a model of one, see below.

My model of the Nutshell Pram, sailing in the test tank at the Hill.

The Colin Archer at dusk. Like I said – they always look good.

A careened Outremer catamaran (a 55', I think). Again, one wouldn't call her pretty, but believe me they're one of the more desirable cruising brands – quick, safe, comfortable. 
Just great all-around boats.

A rather peculiar Wharram pahi catamaran, with a rig in each hull and a very, very odd bubble cabin on the platform (I wouldn't want to be caught out in bad weather in that). Designed by pioneering multi huller James Wharram for amateur construction (in plywood), it is not unusual for them to reflect their owners' idiosyncrasies – but this one takes the biscuit amongst all those I've seen so far.   

Praying mantis. A large Pacific proa which came in on the last day. Pacific proas (one large main hull, one small float to windward) are a very elegant concept, but this one – though interesting – looks too big and cumbersome to be effective.

The Boat Race. The winning gig during the celebrations of the feast of Our Lady of Navigators.

A lovely little trimaran, used as a tender by one of the boats in the anchorage. I was sorry not to have seen her sailing; maybe next year.

Another rather peculiar boat, a monohull this time. Don't know the designer, but she looks very typical of a certain type of English (English, not British) racer of the 50s and 60s, with a reverse sheer and rounded hull-to-deck joint. When the Fool was young, during a school trip to the docks of Lisbon, one of his non-sailing friends, spying one of these, asked whether it was a submarine. It could be, Júlio, it could very well be.