Fran Nichols with Seedling.

Less is more? Less hot fudge on your

sundae? Less money in your tax refund?

In the real world, isn't more definitely

better? In the world of small boats, less

can be an asset. Discover that small boats

can be fast and maneuverable,

comfortable and fun, by sailing a few that

wed form and function into an irresistible

fiberglass package

Story by Robby Robinson, Photos by Scott Coe

She's some tough little boat," I say to Mary and Jim Kilroy, who own the Melonseed I borrow from time to time. In fact, though two can sail cozily in the little 13-foot, 8-inch boat, the Kilroys bought one each. They'd been sailing a catboat in Massachusetts's Duxbury Bay for years until Mary went off and bought her Melonseed. "I missed sailing with her, so I bought one too," Jim says. Now they not only sail (alone or in company) on Duxbury Bay, row the neighboring North River, and prop up the parties held by the growing fleet of neighborhood Melonseeds, they trail both boats to Florida each winter and explore the shoal-water byways at the back of the Everglades and the pristine world of tidal flats west of the Keys.

Marshfield, Massachusetts, builder Roger Crawford developed the Melonseed from the gunning skiffs that hunted Barnegat Bay during the mid-1800s. "I first encountered the boat in Chapelle's American Small Sailing Craft," says Crawford. "She was dated 'Prior to 1888.' We took the lines for the boat we build from a wooden Melonseed built from plans preserved in the Smithsonian archives." Like the Knockabout, the Melonseed is proof that, in the realms of line, proportion, and function, there are such things as timeless truths.

Row her against a chop or plane under sail across a bay, though, and you'll see that she is much more than just a pretty skiff. She was developed to deliver hunters over sloppy, bad-weather water. Right and cute as she looks, her original builders were after function first. Her rig is short, and she weighs more than most planing dinghies, but with the spray shooting laterally and your mental speedo clicking with double-digit speed, those distinctions cease to be very important. "I've always liked sailing," Jim Kilroy says, "but this is something else. These little things are so simple and rugged and capable and pretty. If there's something we're missing out on by sailing them, I sure don't know what it is."