If you haven’t seen them, these little dudes are amazingly fun for the kids who are the right size. Basically, Bic (yeah, those Flick my Bic people) has taken the performance dinghy concept and brought it right down to the entry-level sailor with sailing simplicity, as well as a reasonably affordable price of just under $3K.

This is a fairly simple, stitch and glue boat in 4mm marine ply with glass/epoxy laminates inside and out. It also has a fully boxed truss system under the deck to absorb all the loads and spread the weight of the sailor over a larger area. It has a main sheet, a tiller and a padded foot sling for hiking out. There is a daggerboard and a flip-up rudder and that’s pretty much the whole deal.

The boat is a sealed, hollow form, so it is essentially unsinkable. It should be very easy to right and it requires no bailing at all when jamming around under power, as all the water taken in will simply drain out through the open transom. Again, simple, painless and easy for kids to keep focused on the business of learning how to sail their own sport dinghy.

 

Construction wise, the Cabrillo is a bit more involved to build than is the wonderfully conceived, OZ Puddle Duck by Michael Storer, by way of Shorty Pen. The Cabrillo, however, is aimed at a different kind of audience who has something else in mind, even though the PD is a pretty cool little boat for a somewhat similar purpose.

Power for the boat comes from a square topped, 56 sq. ft. sail, mounted on a very affordable, two piece aluminum mast with a luff sleeve. A simple boom, main sheet system and then drop the whole thing into a pocket in the foredeck. The Cunningham mounts to the deck, so the mast stays with the boat when it is capsized. And it will be capsized… count on it.

 

The foils are very straightforward, NACA section shaped White Ash blades that get varnished after a coat, or two, of epoxy. The whole boat, once taken apart can be easily car topped on any compact car. For that matter, the Cabrillo will easily fit in the bed of a typical full sized pickup, along with the two piece mast and the rolled sail. Simple, painless sailing trips with your kid are right around the corner. The Cabrillo is designed for kids, or any person up to the 160-pound range. Obviously, the bigger the kid, the slower the boat, so there’ll be some fiddling and pestering, once your kid gets up in the weight limit region and is getting passed by younger kids.

 

I have only one bit of caution for the prospective builder of this boat. Start making plans to move up to the next bigger performance dinghy in your local area, because as soon as your child gets too big for the Cabrillo, they’ll be bugging you to build their next hotrod dinghy, or skiff. I’m working on that design solution right now.

 

 

 

 

 

Chris Ostlind