Finding comfort in your floating castle

A boat’s cabin is a private world, and personal touches like the framed etching (left) and paraffin lamp (right) make it your own. Photo by David Roper

A small sailing craft is not only beautiful . . . if it happens to be an auxiliary cruising boat, it is without question the most compact and ingenious arrangement for living ever devised by the restless mind of man – a home that is stable without being stationary, shaped less like a box than like a fish or a bird or a girl, and in which...