Best 21-23 foot trailable sailer that dries out upright?

[stibbles]

It might be worth checking with the Skegness guys to enquire how much water is available at neaps, as this may pose restrictions on what keel depth can be launched - it's only a creek, after all.

Yes, there are considerable restrictions in sailing out of Gibraltar Point, I understand from my enquiries from the very helpful commodore of Skegness YC, but worth it I think for what I think is a wonderful base and I'm not in the happy position of being able to sail each weekend anyway, so would just need to do a bit of planning.

I believe the local club advises a 6m Skegness tide, or 5.8m at the very minimum, subject to wind direction as well.

Re: the Strider point above - yes I am quite a cat fan and good for drying out round there. I have omitted to mention so far (simply because it didn't seem relevant to the post) that I have a cat already!!! She is a Summer Twins 28 and I like her very much, but as the children are not tolerating well the long (tide-long) passages that are pretty much required to go anywhere in this area, then I can see this being consigned to being a floating caravan in a nice holiday spot for a few years! She is too beamy to keep at Gibraltar Point.

So the trailable sailer would be for a modest amount of sailing fun in the meantime, and hopefully to tow once a year for a holiday together elsewhere. A fortunate position to be in and I'm very grateful.

I have thought of keeping the cat in a better area for day sailing, as we did with another boat, but we have decided that the drive would be too much for the children - and their travel sickness. As they say, everything about sailing is a compromise and that maxim could be applied to family life IMHO!

So I have come up with this perhaps slightly idiosyncratic plan.

 

[Lucky Duck]

A friend has a Swift 18 which has reasonable accomodation for its size and he happily tows it behind his Ford Mondeo for the family holdiay to the Norfolk Boards or the West Coast.

 

[Signed Out]

Aha! I see your point. Bar a cockpit tent, they are limited at 3 berths. I imagine it's easy enough to lift the mast out to lay flat. It sounds like you have a similar idea as me- save on compromise so have a 2nd small/cheapish boat. Shame my budget's decided against it for now. (Bar the Dart of course, but want to change that too).

Quite expensive, but the Red Fox 200 always looked a good boat to me. Now made by Hunter I believe, but don't know much else about them. Quirky lifting assymetric daggers, but apparently effective.

 

[Lakesailor]

Bilge keelers have the advantage of drying out mainly upright and not sitting on mooring gear or rocks, and being trailable.

The only point to be aware of is that they need to float off the trailer and need deeper water to launch. So a strop on the tow-bar or an extension draw-bar are required to keep the tow vehicle out of the water.

Of course you could have a piggy-back launch trolley on a flatbed or car trailer to make dunking the trailer a thing of the past.