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Sail and oar boats are particularly suitable for dinghy cruising. While a few boats are designed specifically for this, any sail and oar dinghy may be used, as long as it is suitable for the intended navigation area. Several owners of Ilur use it regularly for this and in particular Roger Barnes, the author of “The dinghy cruising companion“. Ilur is a seaworthy and safe boat, with sufficient loading capacity for an autonomous raid lasting several days with one or two people. Recently, several potential Ilur builders have asked me about the possibility of sleeping onboard. The width between the centreboard case and the side buoyancy compartment is a little tight: 450 mm. So I suggested increasing it to 500mm which is acceptable as shown in the picture. As nothing is lost elsewhere, this new version of the Ilur (the one called “clinker-kit” which is only built from CNC cut plywood) therefore replaces the previous one from this day.

The construction is still done from the existing plan with additional instructions that can be downloaded here, and especially a new set of CNC cutting files available from my partners or that you can order to have them cut by the company of your choice.

Note that it is unfortunately difficult to adapt these changes to an existing “clinker-kit” Ilur or one under construction. In contrast, “classic” Ilurs, which have frames instead of plywood bulkheads, normally provide sufficient room for sleeping.