Bigplumbs
Well-Known Member
I think I can sum up my view in that Towing a 'large' boat any sort of Distance sucks all the joy out of your Holiday.
Yet another first timer (must trailer)
- Thread starter limecc
- Start date
QBhoy
Well-Known Member
Agree. I once towed a 23ft sealine to loch Tay through the terrible roads along the way…only to find the water was too shallow at the slipway to even launch the bloody thing. Ended up taking the boat to a caravan site and plugging in the hook up electrics. Stayed there for a couple of days as a caravan with it ?. Much to the strange looks of my caravan neighbors each side. All the more embarrassing when on the first evening, the good lady decided to take a pee in the toilet…the toilet I had forgot to switch over to the tank…pee straight out the bottom and flowed under the next door caravan ?
Ian h
Well-Known Member
Af ew years old but maybe of some use discussed on another forum,
at the time looked like having air brakes and Nato Hitch on suitable vehicle was the way to go
Towing - Boatmad.com
at the time looked like having air brakes and Nato Hitch on suitable vehicle was the way to go
Towing - Boatmad.com
Alicatt
Well-Known Member
My mother's first real experience of towing was with our 12ft clinker built tender, from Balloch at the south end of Loch Lomond to Loch Morar on the west coast near Mallaig. She had a Morris 1100 as the towing vehicle while my father towed the caravan, a Thomson Glen Eagle 16'6" x 7'6" with a Volvo 144.
As a young teenager I quite enjoyed it, even at the tender age I was, I had more experience in towing than my mother as I got a lot of practice in my fathers garage with the breakdown wagon. Once past Ft. William the roads were single track with passing places, Mum had a crash course in reversing a trailer.
It was the only year we did that
On an island on Loch Morar. Handy Crinan the 12ft Tender, Garry the dog, Myself, Father, brother, and pic taken by my mother. The slide got water damaged when we had a leak in a pipe and it flooded the cupboard where the pictures were kept
jakew009
Well-Known Member
I've just spent the last 2 hours again thinking about the practicalities of dumping my boat in at Emouth Marina which is about an hour and 10 minute drive from home..
Maybe I need to change it for more of a cruiser that that would could spend the night on.....
QBhoy
Well-Known Member
Excellent. I live just near balloch. That’s where my boat is kept.My mother's first real experience of towing was with our 12ft clinker built tender, from Balloch at the south end of Loch Lomond to Loch Morar on the west coast near Mallaig. She had a Morris 1100 as the towing vehicle while my father towed the caravan, a Thomson Glen Eagle 16'6" x 7'6" with a Volvo 144.
As a young teenager I quite enjoyed it, even at the tender age I was, I had more experience in towing than my mother as I got a lot of practice in my fathers garage with the breakdown wagon. Once past Ft. William the roads were single track with passing places, Mum had a crash course in reversing a trailer.
It was the only year we did that
On an island on Loch Morar. Handy Crinan the 12ft Tender, Garry the dog, Myself, Father, brother, and pic taken by my mother. The slide got water damaged when we had a leak in a pipe and it flooded the cupboard where the pictures were kept
View attachment 127792
Alicatt
Well-Known Member
I grew up in Balloch until I was 16, still have property in the Vale.
We kept our boat on the Leven at Tom Lynn's yard, he is now retired and living in Oban.
We kept our boat on the Leven at Tom Lynn's yard, he is now retired and living in Oban.
stelican
Well-Known Member
Lovely to readMy mother's first real experience of towing was with our 12ft clinker built tender, from Balloch at the south end of Loch Lomond to Loch Morar on the west coast near Mallaig. She had a Morris 1100 as the towing vehicle while my father towed the caravan, a Thomson Glen Eagle 16'6" x 7'6" with a Volvo 144.
As a young teenager I quite enjoyed it, even at the tender age I was, I had more experience in towing than my mother as I got a lot of practice in my fathers garage with the breakdown wagon. Once past Ft. William the roads were single track with passing places, Mum had a crash course in reversing a trailer.
It was the only year we did that
On an island on Loch Morar. Handy Crinan the 12ft Tender, Garry the dog, Myself, Father, brother, and pic taken by my mother. The slide got water damaged when we had a leak in a pipe and it flooded the cupboard where the pictures were kept
View attachment 127792
Been going up there yearly since the 90s
The single track road was fun with 22ft 2ton boat.
QBhoy
Well-Known Member
Jeez. Yeah. He had that yard a good while ago now. Sweeney owns that now. Mullen did before that. My boat is kept in the yard just next to there at kitchens.
limecc
Well-Known Member
The 'to tow or not to tow' dilemma is summed up by the different holiday approaches between me and my sister who has a static caravan in Skegness. You really have to like and commit to a place to put down such roots. Statics have more space and better living facilities, but we love our tourer and that it lets us search out and explore new places, also returning to old favs. Flexibility is worth being more cramped and having to tow your home around. She's at crappy Skeggy (sorry if you live there) every weekend. We use our touring caravan typically for three holidays, 6 weeks a year as I'm not retired. If it were a boat I don't want to pay for a permanent mooring I don't want or won't use - even if it were Salcombe, and not that they are easy to obtain.
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Greg2
Well-Known Member
I have been reading this thread with interest having bought a trailer sailer in October. All up towing weight 1800kg which is about the limit for my car and probably about 7.5m in length. Had a baptism of fire for the first mile getting out of a boatyard on the Blackwater in the centre of Maldon. Managed okay and whilst it seems huge behind the car it (and I) coped okay. I am wondering whether regular towing to sail in new waters will be fun or whether it will be too much like hard work.
Before we left the boatyard..
Before we left the boatyard..
limecc
Well-Known Member
Length doesn't matter as long as total train length <25.9m when it comes to towing indivisible loads like a glider. I guess also a boat.
"The law is complex. The construction and use of trailers is covered by the Road Vehicles (Construction and Use) Regulations 1986 and Road Vehicles Lighting Regulations 1989 as amended by over 100 UK amendments and EU Directives. In addition various Road Traffic Acts and Driving Licence Regulations add to the complexity. Trailer Length and Indivisible Loads The legality of glider trailers exceeding 7 metres length being towed by private cars is occasionally misunderstood by insurers and others. In July 2012, the governments VOSA clarified the situation for the BGA, noting why glider trailers exceeding 7 metres in length can be towed by private cars and vans. A glider wing or fuselage is considered to be an indivisible load if it cannot practically be divided into two or more sections. A table in Regulation 7 of the Road Vehicles (Construction and Use) Regulations 1986, as amended, contains the details of the maximum length permitted for various sorts of vehicle and trailer combinations. Item 9 of that table does normally restrict a trailer towed by a vehicle which is not a goods vehicle over 3500 kg GVW to a maximum length of 7m not including the towing hitch arrangements. However regulation 7 (3A) (a) dis-applies the requirements of that table in a number of areas including where a trailer is constructed and normally used for the conveyance of "indivisible loads of exceptional length". In this context "exceptional length" means longer than the regulations would normally permit. This exception would permit a trailer of perhaps 11m length specially constructed to carry indivisible loads such as a glider to be towed by a car or other vehicle which is not a goods vehicle over 3500 kg GVW. Note however that Regulation 7 (5) (b) still limits the length of (i) the towing vehicle to a maximum of 9.2m; and (ii) the length of the towing vehicle and trailer combination to a maximum of 25.9m unless special police notification, escorting and attendant requirements are complied with."
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Bigplumbs
Well-Known Member
The law has little to do with it It is all about how you feel towing and how the other people in the car feel about it Even if you are completely lawful which is not at all easy with a 24 footer as most have said the stress and worry is potentially huge
it is nothing like towing a large Caravan which I do a lot
madabouttheboat
Well-Known Member
I’ve done, and still do, quite a bit of trail boating. To me, the size of boat makes little difference. I’ve towed anything from a 3m Rib to a 3.5 ton, 25ft cruiser. The longest tow I’ve done was 9 hours. As long as the car is capable, the journey is pretty easy, but that may be because I have towed for years and have an HGV licence, so am used to large, heavy vehicles.
The trickiest part of trail boating by far, I think, is finding good launch facilities. Many slipways have either been taken into private ownership and come with much reduced access, if at all, or the slipway is still there but parking is not. I have found that in most places you have to use marina facilities, if they have them, which is fine but often come at quite a price and usually come with caveats and restrictions that are not always easy to work with.
To give one example, I want to launch a small cruiser on the South East corner of Britain for a weekend channel dash (Dover-Calais sort of thing). I have failed to find anywhere that has a slipway that I can use, with parking for the car and trailer for 2-4 days. If anyone knows of one, I would be very happy to hear about it.
The trickiest part of trail boating by far, I think, is finding good launch facilities. Many slipways have either been taken into private ownership and come with much reduced access, if at all, or the slipway is still there but parking is not. I have found that in most places you have to use marina facilities, if they have them, which is fine but often come at quite a price and usually come with caveats and restrictions that are not always easy to work with.
To give one example, I want to launch a small cruiser on the South East corner of Britain for a weekend channel dash (Dover-Calais sort of thing). I have failed to find anywhere that has a slipway that I can use, with parking for the car and trailer for 2-4 days. If anyone knows of one, I would be very happy to hear about it.
jakew009
Well-Known Member
This is so true. Trailer boating would be so much easier if we had more decent, all tide slipways with big car parks near by.
Greg2
Well-Known Member
Thanks limec - good to have a piece of easily understood legislation to make it easy for people….not! ?
dunedin
Well-Known Member
A lot of it is attitude of mind - plus a very well maintained trailer, sturdy / heavy towcar and reasonable width.
My late father towed a similar sized boat from Scotland to Yugoslavia, over the Alps - and back again with engine running only on 3 cylinders. He towed back to the south of France a couple of times so can’t have been too bad.
He got bored of fixing wheel bearings at the roadside (in spite of careful precautions) so ended up paying for crane in and out, and never immersing the trailer.
So at that size very doable. But for the OP I would agree with the recommendations of getting a boat weighed for real on a weighbridge before purchase - and if 2 tons or so, use a crane not the car on a slipway, as pulling uphill on slime won’t end well, and may go backwards and get rather wet.
bowler
Well-Known Member
I agree with all of the above. I still tow a 21ft air nautique around for holidays in Ireland. Total weight on the trailer is around 2T. Getting to new destinations was never an issue really although narrow roads and streets in unfamiliar towns did require a calm head at times. The slipways you arrive at are often not as accessible as presented. I would think twice about doing the same with a much larger boat.
limecc
Well-Known Member
I've never just rocked up at a place and launched even with my small boat. Careful planning, a visual of any new slip, parking, access route etc all need to be considered. In fact the ramp factors into my choice of holiday destination.
Bigplumbs
Well-Known Member
The 15 foot boat you currently tow is so far removed from towing a 22 - 24 footer it is like night and Day. If you achieve it and are happy doing it then good for you
