Practicalities of a trailer sailer

[graham]

I had a 17 foot Lysander Bilge Keeler many years ago .Built it myself from scratch. Unless the slipway was very flat it could be slid off the trailer and floated away ok. If slip was too flat for that try launching on a rising tide or it was light enough for a bit of manhandling. The beauty of bige keel is they protect the boat from anything lurking on the seabed under the boat when you dry out as the tide recedes.

 

[LadyInBed]

Remember that you might have to budget for a change of vehicle not just to tow it but to recover it up a slipway.

 

[coveman]

If I had the cash I would probably go for something like this but not cheap - BayRaider expedition | Swallow Yachts

 

[LONG_KEELER]

I had a boat based on the micro and she was just lovely to sail. Lift keel.

I had all sorts of plans about discovering new cruising grounds but it never happened.

As mentioned, stepping and unstepping the mast in any kind of a wind was the problem,
even using a bespoke A Frame . At least you could manoeuvre the trailer into the wind but lateral movement was the main drawback.


Perhaps others have formulated better systems but the other problem was where do you leave the car and trailer.

 

[wombat88]

No mention of a Drascombe yet? Very easy to launch, mast no longer than boat, quite light but very forgiving to sail. Can me made to move at a reasonable lick. Longboat Cruiser etc.

 

[Sandro]

Wayfarer-sailor,
ever considered a Drascombe? could be too small as accomodation for your wants, but very practical and simple to rig, launch and recovery.
Very stable and safe for a family, tough built and attractive looking. Not a racing one.

Sandro

Sorry Wombat, I had not noticed your post while tiping.

 

[William_H]

Yes firstly a trailer sailer will give you much more confidence and comfort with a family. You can cope with rain or bad weather rough water etc with much more confidence.
I bought a TS 40 years ago and still race it and love it. Yes you need a lift keel to facilitate launching and retrieval. However there are swing keels that go into a box inside the cabin the box sitting on the floor just where you enter the boat very awkward. But a flat bottom for shallow draft. Or you have a swing keel going in to a stub keel so keel is inside an external box. Makes cabin very convenient but increases min draft not so good for launching. Or you have a vertically dropping keel. This gives very shallow min draft but takes up space in the middle of the cabin aft of the mast support post making passage to the fore cabin more difficult.
My 21fter is the last style. The keel has 100kg of ballast with more lead under the floor to make is self righting (as tested by pull down to ocean racing standard). But then it is a bit of a pain to winch the keel up using a 4 purchase and halyard winch. The keel and bottom make an under water shape very similar to a large dinghy to which I attribute really good wind ward performance.
I reckon it took about 30 mins to retrieve may boat recently. I keep it on a mooring all summer. (2 of us 69yo SWMBO and me older) There are things you can set up to make mast handling easy. (and mine is 26ft long) I use 2 spinnacker poles that fit into purpose made rings on the side decks aft of abeam the mast. I have a high field lever in the bottom of the fore stay makes it easy to tension the fractional rig. I have a little 6mm ss rod/ ring attached to the side of the forestay at the bottom. This ring is used to attach the lifting gear leaving the end of the forestay clear for attachment to the high field lever. I have a stern mounted crutch (single pole clamped to the stern rail sitting on the rudder pin. It has support loop welded to the side of it at a suitable height for road transport. In to the top of this post I can drop an extension with a mast support U shape that is another 1.5 metres higher. So to raise the mast I lift it up to the high crutch. (not hard) Then slide the mast back to engage the mast base hinge. I use a 3 purchase tackle on the ring attachment on the forestay in the tackle attachment is a ss ring that takes the ends of the 2 poles. Thus the mast is about 30 degrees from horizontal as I can winch it up to vertical. Actually I tend to lift the mast while standing in the cabin top, the helper winching or taking up the slack on the tackle at the halliard winch . This means that by brute force I can ensure the mast remains vertical and does not flop- from side to side. However there are other strategies/ devices to hold the mast central while raising. I by habit, rig the mast once the boat is in the water. I find prancing around on the deck on the trailer is long way from the ground. Either before or after launching is ok.
Yes the trailer bearings get wet and with brakes will take a lot of maintenance done at home. At one stage when I did keep the boat always at home I had some high guide poles welded to the back of the trailer made it much easier to guide the boat on. A rebuilt trailer and they got lost. Now when winching on to the trailer I get the bow started over the aft roller then attach the winch wire and start winching in. An electric winch would be great in old age but usually I have younger helpers. I have my helper hold a rope to the stern from a jetty next to the ramp. (slip you call it) (yes it is very slippery). The helper has a long pole so she can pull stern on way or push the other to instructions from the wincher at the front of the trailer. So not much shouting hopefully. This is the difficult part getting through the experience barrier using spouse for helper without divorce. Be carefull be patient and be appreciative. ol'will

 

[langstonelayabout]

Remember that you might have to budget for a change of vehicle not just to tow it but to recover it up a slipway.

Very good point. My old Peugeot 405 certainly couldn’t pull my 22‘ E-Boat up a normal launching slipway. The wheels slipped on dry concrete and on wet or slimy concrete it was worse.

My Jeep pulled it easily, but that’s another story (and 12mpg).

 

[steve yates]

A boat like that will come down to whats available at a price with decent trailer and sails, rather than looking for specific makes. Having said that, I'm going to punt the bradwell 18 as a very solid, stable marque for you, or more relevantly, the wee ones. Pete has been aboard mine when he tuned my rigging for me in Largs once, and was surprised that he could easily stand on the side decks without the boat tilting at all

I wouldn't be too keen on launching and recovering mine every time, I'd never go sailing if I had to do that! But taking somewhere and sailing for a period then trailing it back would be fine. That said, I just leave mine in the water, the trailer has only ever been used twice!

Do a search on here for lakeslover, an ex member, he has a video somewhere of his launching and recovering his trailer sailer in ullswater, he had it down to 20 mins from arrival to being launched and rigged and ready to go.

 

[DownWest]

Do a search on here for lakeslover, an ex member, he has a video somewhere of his launching and recovering his trailer sailer in ullswater, he had it down to 20 mins from arrival to being launched and rigged and ready to go.

Errata...Lakesailor According to some Lakey is still here...

 

[fredrussell]

I wonder why no trailer-sailer manufacturer ever followed the Broads sailboat style of lowering counter balanced mast. There’s a cavity in foredeck for counter balance at base of mast to pivot into. Combined with a gaff/gunter rig to keep the amount of lowered mast projecting from aft end of boat to a minimum.
I had a Jaguar 23 with an A-frame for raising and lowering of mast. Did it once, and that was the end of my dabbling with trailer sailing!

 

[coveman]

Probably your choice will be between boats such as the Drascombe and Swallow boats which can easily be rigged for a day sail, and the larger, heavier trailer sailors which are trailerable but you would not want to have to rig them for a day sail. It all comes down to what you want to do with the boat, but don't underestimate the time involved in rigging etc larger boats. I have an Etap 22ft boat, which I love, but I would not entertain day sailing with it.

 

[KINGFISHER 8]

There's a tidy looking Swift 18 on Apollo Duck at the moment - looks well cared for and good trailer with it, with 4 guides to help loading.

 

[Alfie168]

For a 'dinghy with a lid' look at the Skipper 17 or its last manifestation as the much better made Eagle 525. Its not a lot more difficult to manhandle than a Wayfarer. They were made until 2004 20 miles up the road from where I used to live by Morton Boats who still do restorations. You can pick up a Skipper 17 for £500 but a decent condition fully equipped Eagle 525 could be as much as £5k. The Eagle version is FAR nicer and there were a goodly few on Rutland Water. Its more of a day sailer, but has just enoough room if the kids are not too tall.

You may think it looks a bit funny and angular, but it was designed by Peter Milne who designed the Fireball, so he knew how to make a boat sail properly.

http://www.mortonboats.co.uk/user/Eagle_525__101_.pdf

 

[DownWest]

Just get an idea of rigs, a local friend built and sails this:
Downloadable Sailboat Plans by George Whisstock
His is the one on the right and now has a cabin, but only really for one. His feedback to the designer has led to design 077, which has a bigger cabin .
Anyway, he daysails a lot and we made some mods to it. Both the foresails are on furlers with 2:1 tackles led aft, with the mast in a tabernacle. All sails are left in place and the shrouds attached. So, just shoulder the mast and gaff up off the aft crutch and haul on the tackles. Rigged in a matter of seconds.. The steel c/plate has some help from internal ballast and she is quite stable. While not a light flyer, she is not slow either. Trailer is a breakback and it can be launched with the wheels just up to the thickness of the tyres, Tows her quite long distances with a Kangoo.

 

[Alfie168]

If you have a bit more money then I'd look for a Pippin 20 which I think is the perfect family lift keel trailer sailer. They were made just round the corner from my previous house in Boston, but sadly ceased trading. I think they made between 50-100 boats It is SO roomy for a 20 footer as it has no side deck. It is a very simple rig and probably one of the fastest to mast raise and launch. The main thing though is the sheer quality of the GRP finish and fittings such as the rudder stock...which (lovely boat though it is from a lines and sailing perspective) you will not find in a Swift. It is a bigger boat than the Skipper/Eagle and is a little more to manhandle but makes up for it with the space down below.

Pippin - 20 in Suffolk, Eastern | Boats and Outboards

Photo Gallery

 

[DownWest]

I was thinking Red Fox 20, but couldn't find one easily. But one from Proctor here:Boats for sale UK, boats for sale, used boat sales, Sailing Yachts For Sale 1980 Ridgeway Pirate - Apollo Duck

Edit: Red fox info here;https://sailboatdata.com/sailboat/red-fox-200

But looks a bit heavy for everyday launching, shallow draft though.

 

[Alfie168]

My boat is a Dehler 22 trailer sailer with lifting vertical wind up keel. Its just delightful to sail (Van der Stadt design), and I have the additional mast raising shrouds so I can get the mast up or down single handed in no time at all with the winch and a rope. Its the rest of the faffing around rigging that takes the time . Also when it dries out it does so at a 5 degree angle so doesn't sit flat on sand and that is a bit of a minus frankly. As a sailing machine it gets my vote every time. As a boat for a family i'd go with a Pippin every time. Silly questions don't occur to you at first. Can you get everybody in the cockpit reasonably comfortably ? You look and think..."Loads of room" but when it gets a bit busier its can suddenly feel very cramped.

 

[JumbleDuck]

For a 'dinghy with a lid' look at the Skipper 17 or its last manifestation as the much better made Eagle 525.

We had the very first Skipper Mariner (as they were then called) when I was a child. Lovely big cockpit and surprisingly roomy cabin, but a pernicious lee helm, which I am sure was corrected on later ones. The local sailing centre has three of them which they used to take people out for trips before they were mostly replaced by a Drascombe.

 

[steve350]

Wayfarer-sailor,
ever considered a Drascombe? could be too small as accomodation for your wants, but very practical and simple to rig, launch and recovery.
Very stable and safe for a family, tough built and attractive looking. Not a racing one

Yes the Drascombe would be the boat I'd give serious consideration to. Especially the Coaster with its cuddy, it ticks plenty of desirable boxes:
Lift keel
Not too heavy displacement, 480kg.
Seaworthy design.

The simplicity of the rig would make setting up the boat a much simpler task and less onerous than perhaps a bermudan with all the associated standing rigging of that configuration. The Drascombe is a gunter yawl rig with loose footed sails. This would be an important consideration for me

Although not essential I'd look for a break back or swing beam trailer for ease of launching.

I have a copy of the Dinghy Cruising Companion by Roger Barnes. Although its concerned mostly with dinghies the final chapter deals with various launch techniques and trailer options. It's available to the OP, PM me if you'd like the book.