Westerly Pageant on a trailer - hypothetical

dylanwinter said:
you might be right but


crane out £50

van vire £100

diesel - maybe another £100

so for £250 I can bring the overheads for the boat to zero by bringing it home

as a freelance.... once a financial drought starts there is no knowing when it will end. BBC is currently absorbing 20 per cent cuts.... so at my age I expect to drop completely off their books


I confess that I am in a bit of a dilemma - I really want to keep KTL going - but working out how to make that happen given the modest cash flow from the project means that I have to work out a way of setting it up on a sustainable basis. That means that I have to be in a position to mothball the project when cash flows plummets - but I also need a boat that is big enough for me to spend longer periods aboard as I get further north and as petrol prices rise




The slug is worth perhaps £1000.

If I buy another boat for say £5,000 (maybe less) - plus a trailer for maybe £1500 I can then get control of my costs

If I buy an old Centaur for £7,500 then I am locked into ongoing costs - big boat craning, big boat storage, big boat sails and repair costs

even if I find a cheap place to leave it - but cheap is till going to be a fair amount of cash

Even mothballing the slug for a year at Fosdyke would cost me £800 or more. To spend that money mothballing a boat that is only worth £1000 is insane. To spend £1500 for a trailer to go under a £1000 boat also makes little sense - especlailly as I really need to throw some money at the boat if I am to finish the journey with it.

I am not at the decision point yet.... I have enough resources in cash and optimism to get me through this summer - and who knows - where future freelance revenues will come from.

Certainly not making sailing films.

I am four years into the project and I have to accept that I can flog a few DVDs and I can give stuff away on youtube where maybe 2,000 a year people will bother to watch them - those in turn get me a bit of sailing relatede journalism and a bit of camera work as well but I cannot see my freelance income sustaining a bigger boat.

So I am trying to work out a way ahead in uncertain times - the future for the cost of petrol is looming ever larger as a massive unknown - imagine what would happen if a petrol kept on rising at the speed it has over the past two years. Could I carry on if a tank of petrol for a Polo was £200

As for going native on New Zealand if I end up spending four months over there living in a van..... I have been there and it is a wonderful place but my home is here, my family is are here and I am too old for them to let me in anyway

Dylan
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A thought somebody to boat share on your way round someone who you would trust one week in 2 or 3 on average. You get to do your thing they hang on to your coat tails and get to see places
 
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Corribee Boy said:
Applescruffs,

The things you quote are possibly right for a smaller transit, but 350 transit vans have a GTM of 6000 kg, which is why you see them towing small excavators, and corribees, without being stopped by the wheeltappers and shunters. (touch wood). Oddly, the biggest problem with legality is the rating of the tyres - the heaviest I can get is 745 KG per tyre which is a bit tight with boat, trailer, and piggybank launching trolley to prevent dunking the main trailer. I find once something's been dunked in saltwater, no amount of rinsing stops future rust.
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How do you identify a '350' transit? Will it have double rear wheels or somesuch?
 
Pretty much everything you put into the Pageant and trailer you'll get back, everything you put into mooring fees is lost. And if trailering doesn't work out you can sell the trailer for most of what you paid for it.
 
Robwhelton said:
How do you identify a '350' transit? Will it have double rear wheels or somesuch?
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I always think the giveaway is the '350' written on the rear doors :D and sometimes by the side windows: they often also have the horsepower by the window as well.

The real test is to open the passenger side door, and there's a panel on the door pillar stating axle weights, gross vehicle weight (3500Kg), and the all-important Gross Train Mass - you're looking for '6000 kg', meaning you can legally tow up to the 3500kg limit. Remember the 85 percent trailer/towing vehicle ratio guideline, and adjust it according to towing conditions/stability/gradients etc.
 
Check the laws. I'm pretty sure that if you tow with a commercial vehicle you need to have a tacho fitted and at or over a certain weight it will need "plating" and not the usual MoT.

I seem to remember that a few of the guys on the Landrover forums were putting windows and seats in the back of LWB Landys to get around the laws.
My grey matter is not what it once was so do check. For the money I think the cheapest option is to go the Diesel Discovery route. A decent one, they are about, around the 10 year mark could be picked up for less than the ptice of your Polo.

Insure it on a classic insurance, with someone Like Peter Best Isurance, and you'll brng the cost right down. Fuel will be comparable to a Transit anyway.

Having towed bigger boats in the past, its not a "quick trip" to take the boat out. It can actually be quite stressfull. Nost motorists won't realise the constraints on your stopping, getting going and ability to change direction quickly. I had an idiot pull in infront of me on a motorway, leaving little room, hit the brakes and wondered why I piled into the back of him. Police got involved and worked out that it was his fault.

I would seriously consider wether the extra pain is really worth it. I know I'm glad that I've now got a mooring
 
E boat

I used to tow an eboat with a 1600 cc sierra

but I was young and stoopid

now I am older and clearly still just as dim

I am not planning on towing it around that much - hopefully not at all unless I run out of work again

If I have a trailer I could get a delivery bloke to tow it for me

but I can cut KTL costs to the bone

BBC just announced 150 journos getting the heave-ho

so thin times for freelancers as well

so maybe I am being optimistic

D
 
Just looked at my 07, 350/125hp transit . GVW 3500kg GTM 6300kg so that gives a tow weight of 2800 kgs which seems to tie in with ,


Ford Transit Van year of construction 04/00-
Order no. 307260600001
System ball plate, 2 screws
ECE No. 0864
Installaton time ca. 60 Minutes
cut no cut
Weight 19.8 kg
D-Value 15.26 KN
Vertical load 112 kg
Towing capacity 2800 kg

taken from the Westfalia towbars web page
 
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BarryH said:
Check the laws. I'm pretty sure that if you tow with a commercial vehicle you need to have a tacho fitted and at or over a certain weight it will need "plating" and not the usual MoT.

(snip)
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Err just tax it as a private "car" I think the category is PLG (private & light goods) no need for tachos or any other nonsense. My Motorhome at 3,500kg is in that category.
 
Searush said:
Have you not got an anchor to stop you going further aground? Row it out 50m & drop it in deeper water is the standard procedure most people might use. Then lifting the keel makes life easy.
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Hi Searush. You are obviously envisaging a different boat to my little one. I am almost always racing on Swan River. I don't carry a dinghy to take an anchor out. Indeed the boat has been described as dinghy like. So procedure is to push the bow around to face in a suitable escape direction. (with spin pole) Heel the boat and hopefully sail away with sails sheeted in tight. Not always so easy on a lee shore. In which case it might require me to get in the water and push.
We have been known to escape in seconds. Yes the boat heels quite easily being about 950Kg all up. Indeed one day with 4 of us heeling it all leaning out on gunwhale she actually fell over to our surprise.
Anyway sorry about the thread drift. Funny how running aground here in my boat is so different to doing so in a bigger boat. But yes I understand the principals you speak of. olewill
 
Dylan,

Have you priced up commercial delivery? By the time you have rented a suitable vehicle (assuming you can get one with a tow bar) paid the diesel, bought the trailer and chewed your nails on the journey, the difference in price might not be that great.

BTW in my experience, when companies start releasing their permanent staff, pretty soon they are hiring them back as freelancers!
 
I agree

Wunja said:
Dylan,

Have you priced up commercial delivery? By the time you have rented a suitable vehicle (assuming you can get one with a tow bar) paid the diesel, bought the trailer and chewed your nails on the journey, the difference in price might not be that great.

BTW in my experience, when companies start releasing their permanent staff, pretty soon they are hiring them back as freelancers!
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I am heading that way now

not sure what happens at this end - I assume getting a Pageant off a trailer without a crane is not easy

as for staff going from the BBC ..... 20 per cent cuts last year

they stopped employing freelances then



it has happened to me before

- three times in my career with the BBC - assuming a freelancer has a career

- all BBC work stopped for about a year each time when a new cost cutting DG came in

- I worked as a van driver, warehouseman, weighbridge operator just to keep the income coming in until I found camera or reporting work elsewhere

.. then the BBC work came back just as you say

not sure it will this time - been through an 18 month work drought

this is a big one

I am also now in my late 50's and the same age as the grandfathers of some of the current producers

although I do have a prog going out on Easter Saturday morning on Radio 4 and they keep ohn repeating my old work on radio 4extra now that repeat fees have been abolished

the prog on saturday is is on anthro-zoology - basically it about why we have tubby dogs and tubby horses - went to Crufts and interviewed some people who were barking
 
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