In the late 1990s, the prolific small-boat designer Iain Oughtred worked with his friend Brice Avery to design a trailerable coastal cruiser. With inspiration drawn from canoe yawls of yore, the resulting craft would be known as Eun Mara. A gaff-rigged yawl, it has a 19′ 9″ length on deck, a 6′ 8″ beam, and draws 1′ 5″ bilgeboards up and 3′ 4″ with them down. The twin bilgeboard trunks are integrated into the interior furniture, leaving the spartan but spacious cabin more open than it would otherwise be with a traditional centerboard trunk dividing the space.The plans include a centerboard option paired with an inboard rudder and self-draining cockpit as well as a sloop rig. The 11 pages of drawings come with a table of offsets for lofting the boat but also include full-sized patterns for the molds with the plank lands drawn in. The hull is glued-lapstrake construction using 3⁄8″ marine-plywood planks and decking with dimensional lumber used for the backbone, keel, and a pair of laminated frames to help support the deck-stepped mainmast. There are approximately 400 lbs of lead in the keel, and the two bilgeboards are 3⁄4″-thick steel plate, each weighing about 100 lbs, for roughly 600 lbs of ballast. The plans offer an option for an inboard rudder with a tiller forward of the mizzenmast, but for the outboard rudder, which is also offered by Oughtred, a split tiller that loops around the mizzenmast is required.
Dieter Loibner
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I’ve seen MARIANITA several times. Wonderful boat beautifully executed! Thanks for the story on her build and performance, Steve!
Thanks, Steve. Great article and description. Like Alex, Alison and I have admired “Marianita” several times. We enjoyed our Eun Mara too. A pity we had to sell her but she has a good owner now, who has renamed her “Skye”. We did some excellent cruising trips with her, one of six weeks, one of a month and others shorter, over five years. We kept her at home on her trailer, so as you say, she was a cruising boat, not a boat for just a sunny afternoon.
By the way, “Eun Mara” or “Eun na Mara” (Iain wrote it both ways) is Scottish Gaelic for “bird of the sea” (= sea-bird).
Ian
A beautiful boat. What would be the cost to build or buy today?
Fredericton, NB
Canada
Great article Steve. You will be pleased to know that the prototype is still sailing around on the west coast of Scotland. Right now bobbing about on her mooring at the end of the garden.
Best wishes, Brice Avery.
Both bilge keels are used continuously upwind? Is there any performance tinkering to be had by adjusting one or the other or both, or are they pretty much set and forget (at least until they start tinking along the rocks?)
Beautiful, how long did it take to build her? I really like the sail plan and the use of bilgeboards.
Steve, thanks for your story of Marianita. A long time ago I’ve also started to build an Eun Mara “notedop” (means nutshel). I’ve been sailing on a lot other boat and my boat didn got the intentions she needed. I was being told by some of my friends (not asking but demanding) to finish the job. This article, your story is also a right push.
next job bilgeboards and placing the keel. Thanks, Edwin (Netherlands)