What Yacht?

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tilpah

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I want to move on from Dinghy sailing and spend £5000 ish on a trailer sailer for myself, wife and two very young children to spend some quality holiday time in.
I'm a bit of a born again yachtsman, previous yachts owned were a Lysander and a Westerly Nimrod, I'm a bit out of touch with whats in vogue just now, quite fancy a Swift 18 and saw an Etap 22 which was out of my price range at £10000........any suggestions, lake, loch and estuary sailing
 
You may just get an E boat within your budget. They weigh just over a ton but you wont get a roomier boat which you can tow.
Another possibility is an Anderson 22 lifting keel but the cockpit is quiet small.

Iain
 
Depends what you're after...
I had a lift keel Jaguar 23 which I got for about £5k, but never trailed it. Benefits were it had almost standing headroom, and sailed nicely. I'm no expert, and she merrily handled a cross channel trip. Basically it sailed well, and had more light roomy accomodation than most - I used it like a small cruiser really.
However, I never trailed it - the trailer it was on when I bought it looked unroadworthy. Also it doesn't have an easy arrangement for lowering the mast (no tablernacle arrangement to make it easy, and no directional stability if its blowing once the shrouds start to come loose. I guess it would be quite heavy to trail.
I have been on an e-boat, sailed off the Devon coast. They sail better than the Jaguar, but accomodation is cramped and dark. So, again it depends what you're after.
You'd probably get a better condition swift for that money, but I never really saw a very good one when I was looking.

Best of luck searching!
 
We were also looking for a similar boat for Trailer Sailing for 2 adults and 2 small children (4 yrs and 1yr old) with a similar budget last year.

We eventually bought a Copeland Harrer 20 which is easy to launch and recoverr) has plenty of room below, is light enough to tow behind an 1800cc car and has pretty good sailing performance as well. You can pick them up from 4 - 5K.

I also looked at a Hunter Medina which is very similar to the Copeland and also well thought of for performance and accomodation.

To start with I really wanted an Anderson 22 which you can get for £3500 - 5000, these boats were built tough, and can sail in virtually anything, but we decided it was too heavy to tow without a large 4X4 - it also needs 2 foot of water even with the keel up so would be more difficult to launch than other lifting keeler.

The E-boat does have lots of accomodation - particularly the version with the raised coach roof, but it really majors on performance - I had also heard that they are a bit tippy - if racing is your thing, I would give it serious condideration.

We had to prioritise what the most important factors are:
Performance - Do you intend to race at all?
Size of Cockpit Vs Cabin Accomodation - not many designs at this size are good at both!
Ability to tow behind family car.
How often will you tow it? Will it be kept on a mooring for most of the season?
How easy is it to launch and recover?
Will it fit up the side of the house for the winter!

PBO did a series on comparing trailer sailors about a year ago - might be worth getting a copy..

Happy searching!

Robert
 
I had an e boat for several years, great for space but short on headroom. They have great performance but you have to be aware of the wind to reef early. With there flat decks easy to move about.
They can be towed with a large saloon but are very beamy. If you go for this make sure you get the twin axle trailer with launching bogey, otherwise launching and recovery stills requires 2-3feet of water.
there is an e boat web site http://www.ritchie157.freeserve.co.uk/e-boat/e-boat.htm

They are great boats and have also crossed the atlantic.
Fair winds
John
 
Great advice, the wife like the caravan qualities of the Swift selection, but I aint no caravanner! Eboats seem to have the qualities I desire, but what is the accomodation like?

There were loads of boats in the under 20' trailer sailer class 20 years ago, and it seems the same selection of osmosis ridden craft are still available today, sort of like buying an old 's' reg ford cortina, not desireable enough to be classic yet not cheap enough either.

What is the must have trailer sailer for the 21st century?
 
We had an Evolution 22, which, I think, is the "E-boat with a coachroof" someone mentioned. Plenty of space for a trailable boat and very nicely finished with real wood and decent cushion covers. no standing headroom but two separate (albeit by a curtain) cabins. Ours towed like an utter pig. We used an Landrover to tow it. Launching was very easy (lift keel) but recovering it was tricky. The trailer was basically a part mould taken off the bottom of the boat which the boat just sat in. This meant there was no positive stop against which you knew the boat was correctly positioned. It also meant anti-fouling was nigh impossible unless it was hanging in the boat lift or sat on trestles.

It is a light boat with plenty of sail so it's fast. We used ours on Windermere, the Caledonian canal, round Anglesey and in Morecambe bay. It didn't like waves at all. Any steep waves would stop it dead in its tracks. Also, the outboard would come out of the water as it went down a wave so you'd loose drive under power.

On flat water, however, it was really fast and handled like a big dinghy. The cockpit was also very roomy with good stowage lockers.
 
I think I have the PBO with the trailer sailer article, pm your address and I'll pop it in the post.

Buck

Relax, life is just a game.
 
My first sailing was in a friends Fox Terrier 22.

Lifting keel floats in 1 ft of water & we towed it home every year.

We used to sail cross channel Christchurch to Cherbourg/ Alderney regularly & once did Plymouth- Roscoff then coast hopped around to Camaret.

The strongest wind we ever got caught out was force 11 & it took it all although the Rudder did break once in a 7 in mid channel.

Good accommodation for four & a separate heads.

Bit of a mover too.

Worth a look.

Martin
 
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