Trouble-free trailer-sailing
Trailer-sailing has always been a good idea in theory. It saves the maintenance and expense of keeping a boat on a mooring or in a marina berth and you can trail to wherever you want to sail. For many people it works in practice too, provided you go away for long enough to justify the time spent rigging and launching and then recovering and de-rigging afterwards.
Given a big enough car and driveway, you can trail and sail a boat of a size that imposes few restrictions once you’re afloat. A week’s cruise with a family of four? Not a problem. But what if your time is limited and you want something that’s light and simple enough to trail, rig, launch, sail, recover, de-rig and trail home again in a day? That has traditionally meant accepting something pretty small, with minimal or perhaps no accommodation. While the adventurous might use it for camper-cruising, to most people it would be a dayboat.
There’s no getting away from compromises no matter what sort of boat you’re looking for. In this case it’s cost and convenience weighed up against the ability to sail further and spend longer aboard in greater comfort.
The question is where this leaves you in today’s market if you want to be able to cruise around the coast of a weekend and also take advantage of inviting days that start and finish in your driveway – without the need for
