Caravelle 16 by Bateau.com

Comments from the designer: like thousands of others in Europe, I learned sailing aboard a Caravelle. The original Caravelle was a plywood boat with a bow transom, 15'+, designed by the French architect Jean-Jacques Herbulot. They are still used by the famous French sailing school "Les Glenans" and every Club Med has a bunch of them. She is a very pleasant boat: a forgiving trainer with very decent performance and has excellent load carrying capability. She looks somewhat like the D4 and other Sabots but much bigger. In that type of hull shape, there is also the famous Dinghy Mirror, a British design, mother of all stitch and glue boats. In the US, a similar looking boat is the Trifle: very pretty lines. But none of these boats is available in a version larger than 11'6". We designed the Caravelle with features well suited to family sailing: comfortable benches oriented lengthwise and a small cuddy for storage. The best use of 4 sheets of plywood for the hull gave us a length of 14'4".

This is a stayed rig but we kept it simple: no turnbuckles, use lashings instead. The forestay goes to a stem piece epoxy laminated to the bow, the shrouds to eyes in the mid frame. All very simple, strong and economical.