Trailer Sailors!

TSB240 said:
Changed my mind I have fallen in love with the french Pogo 2 design

Not offered with a lift keel yet.....

Very similar in design to the Elan 210 bit beamier and just 90mm too wide for our trailer and load regs!

Transatlantic race proven designs

1tonne sailing weight easily towed by a family car

http://www.finot.com/bateaux/batproduction/structures/pogo2/pogo2_pres.htm

Who needs water ballast or 50HP motor!
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It is quite reasonable to put a fin keel boat onto a trailer for road transport. Sure you may have to let the trailer down into the water on the end of a rope until the boat will float off and likewise push the trailer in quite deep to reload and haul out on a rope. You need a good steep ramp and of course a suitable trailer.
olewill
 
I looked twice at that pic. Only 13ft? Cockpit about 15"?? It looks to be a boat a tad larger.
DW

Looked again, might be that small, but...
 
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I have a 26 foot trailer sailer with a 32 ft mast. I leave home 1 hour before race briefing.
In that time i have to drive 25 minutes, raise the mast, attach main and jib and launch the boat and tie up to floating jetty.
Since I often have novice crew I have a system of mast raising that allows me to do it alone if necessary.
Careful attention to snag points plus a 1:1 boat trailer winch i got at a garage sale for $5 made this possible.
I hook the the winch to the spinnaker beckett on the mast and run a 6 mm dyneema line from it to a block on the pulpit and hook it back to the cleated Jib Halyard. Crank away and give an initial lift with halyard over my shoulder and it is all easy and relaxed.
It is helpful but not essential to have crew in cockpit unhooking any snags of stays that might occur. I have worked at trying to make things snag free, but it still happens sometimes. A whisker pole would make it easier still but seems a needless complication.
As part of my engineering training i spent time working as a rigger. To the uninitiated it is astonishing how easy it is to handle some really heavy gear manually with just a few tackles and chain blocks and rollers. Raising a mast without stress or sweat is relatively easy and all about having the right kit.
 
Just to add a bit to this thread. To see how well water ballast can work, have a look at this link of a Swallow Boats Baycruiser undergoing RCD tests (This is my boat, by the way. This test was carried out the day before I had my first sail in her)

http://youtu.be/Hy1HOhLGnHU

Other aspects of this boat. The mast is carbon fibre. When raising it, I put a bolt through the foot in a tabernacle and then just lift it up vertically, hold it firm against the shrouds with my shoulder and tighten the jib halyard to hold it in position whilst I lash the forestay lanyard. No need for A frames or special winches, and I have done this on the trailer and afloat several times.

Launching is simple, as shown in this clip. Retrieval is easy as the unballasted boat weighs just 450kg (850 with water ballast) I have sailed singlehanded from Poole to Yarmouth in F6 with gusts without any hint of being knocked down.

http://youtu.be/sDv5JBY4_ZU

No boat is perfect but this one suits my needs.
 
jswindel said:
Launching is simple, as shown in this clip. Retrieval is easy as the unballasted boat weighs just 450kg (850 with water ballast) I have sailed singlehanded from Poole to Yarmouth in F6 with gusts without any hint of being knocked down.

http://youtu.be/sDv5JBY4_ZU

No boat is perfect but this one suits my needs.
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the thing that's puzzled me about a water ballasted boat, is how do you get the ballast out?

I've always guessed you open a valve to let the water in. So by that logic, you can't just drain it while afloat, you need to drag it ballasted onto the trailer, and then let the water out?

Just curious to know how it really works.
 
What worries me about water ballast and boats that float high on their side tanks, as the video of the Bayraider shows, is the question as to what happens if such a boat turns turtle, as I'm sure that it could? I would imagine that the effort required to right the boat would be immense. A controlled capsize is one thing, turning turtle at sea is another.
 
Penton Hooker said:
What worries me about water ballast and boats that float high on their side tanks, as the video of the Bayraider shows, is the question as to what happens if such a boat turns turtle, as I'm sure that it could? I would imagine that the effort required to right the boat would be immense. A controlled capsize is one thing, turning turtle at sea is another.
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you will be pleased to see you were completely wrong.
 
The open BayRaiders use dinghy self bailers in the ballast tank to suck out the ballast water whilst sailing or motoring. On my Baycruiser I use a manual bilge pump which takes about 10-15 minutes of pumpimg.

It is perfectly possible to haul out the boat with the ballast water still on board, it is just a bit more of a crank. There is a clip somewhere of this being done with a larger 23 foot BayCruiser. Opening the reversed self bailer, which is used to fill the tank, allows the water to just drain out before you start driving away. The big advantage of the ability to get rid of the ballast is that the towing weight is low enough to just need an unbraked trailer (on the 20 foot model. The bigger ones need a braked trailer).

According to a PBO test, the angle of vanishing stability for a Baycruiser is 120 degrees. The mast would have to be pointing 30 degrees under water before it would turn turtle. I have never heard of any Baycruiser even being knocked flat, so I am happy with the stability. The Bay Raiders have been inverted very rarely, when sailed unballasted, but they can be righted by one person as the buoyancy is asymetric, which gives a tilt to one side. I haven't heard of any going over when ballasted, although anything is possible in extremes.
 
Not sure if I have embedded this correctly. If I have, the clip below is the one showing a 23 ft Baycruiser being launched in very shallow water (look how far the wheels of the trailer go into the water) sailed and then recovered, fully ballasted. Again, look at the trailer wheels, and this is recovering a fully ballasted boat.
If the embedding didn't work, the YouTube link is
http://www.youtube.com/embed/c5ZvlRZcX6Y
 
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TSB240 said:
Thanks for that. You have just made my day.:)

I shall continue to dream......

Now how much do I have to save?


Sorry Zag to steal your thread.:D All the best with your purchase.

I hope you will give us some feedback on your outings.

Steve
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And another one to keep your appetite wetted.....

http://www.opensailingusa.com/Boats/Pogo2/Videos.html

:D :D

Nice 3-sail reach in this one...... :D :D


On the subject of launching/retrieving fin keelers...

Launching is easy, rope from tow vehicle is required & a trailer that can go in the (sea) water & that's about it.

Recovery is somewhat harder as the boat will be level & the trailer on a slope. You need a bow catcher on the trailer to ensure the correct trailer position & someone on the boat to catch the bow-catcher, plus obviously a rope between the tow & trailer.
 
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BAtoo said:
And another one to keep your appetite wetted.....

http://www.opensailingusa.com/Boats/Pogo2/Videos.html

:D :D

Nice 3-sail reach in this one...... :D :D


On the subject of launching/retrieving fin keelers...

Launching is easy, rope from tow vehicle is required & a trailer that can go in the (sea) water & that's about it.

Recovery is somewhat harder as the boat will be level & the trailer on a slope. You need a bow catcher on the trailer to ensure the correct trailer position & someone on the boat to catch the bow-catcher, plus obviously a rope between the tow & trailer.
Click to expand...


Wow now that is not only the dream boat but it has a perfect owner skipper.
 
Just another video from Denman Marine in Tasmania, which shows the effectiveness of water ballast and recovery from a test inversion. What I like best about it is not the ease of recovery but the difficulty of capsize in the first place. The Baycruiser cabin boat that I have doesn't have the asymmetric buoyancy to help recovery. I presume this is because the cabin roof, which is encapsulated foam, is so buoyant in itself that it makes the inverted boat inherently unstable. I haven't tried to test that theory...
 
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