Practical and safe limits for trailering

[InTheBeech]

I am interested in a few designs that all fall into this same general category; shallow but not shoal draft and masts of considerable length. My question is where to draw the line, given that the water is a few miles away along smooth roads and with a very secure launching ramp at their end. How much draft is launchable and how much mast can be struck with safety by one person? As a starting point, let's assume a twenty footer that draws three feet and has a mast of approximately equal length (unknown weight), and with the longest commercial trailer that is appropriate for the weight (which would be in the 4K-5K pound range). How about a centerboarder that still draws two feet? My truck can pull it easily and the ramp is fine though of unknown grade. I just don't know the limitations and need to obviously be very confident that I am not building a boat that requires a slip and yacht clup membership. For perspective, think of the Sallee Rover, Alden Doublender, Buzzard's Bay 14 and such.
Thanks,
Ed

[Kaa]

"How much draft is launchable" depends entirely on your ramp. Well, and partly on your trailer -- a two-part system (trailer + dolly) as used by e.g. Eun Maras can launch boats even off a beach.

Generally speaking any trailerable boat (which is different from "a boat that could conceivably be moved on a trailer") is launchable given a decent ramp. I don't think you'd have problems deciding whether any specific design is launchable.

As to the mast, it depends on whether it's keel-stepped or you have a tabernacle. Obviously, keel-stepped masts are a much bigger hassle to set up. But again, given a specific design people will be able to tell you how hard it is to set up a mast and whether it's doable single-handedly. There is no generic answer.

Kaa

[ishmael]

Um, to the trailering question. A boat that size is going to need a tandem axle trailer(probably) and brakes(definately.) The front of a good road Atlas will list the load limit where various states require brakes. It varies from 1000 lbs. up to maybe twice that. I've bent the law more than once. Many do. I couldn't afford to retrofit the trailer with brakes. It also wasn't easy to find the parts.

Running a few miles to the water I say just go for it.

[David G]

Running a few miles to the water I say just go for it.

I'd agree. But go for it Very Cautiously! :eek:

[Krunch]

I'd agree. But go for it Very Cautiously! :eek:

...and keep your insurance paid up!

[DerekW]

My question is ...How much draft is launchable...the ramp is fine though of unknown grade.At the risk of stating the obvious, you need to get the trailer far enough into the water for the boat's waterline to reach the surface, and where that happens is directly related to the ramp angle and the distance from ground under the trailer wheels up to the waterline.
I'd go out at the ramp in a dink with a pole marked off for depth, and a marked line anchored to shore to allow me to measure distance off.
The boat's going in at an angle and of course the stern will float up first, but depending on where the design carries her displacement then at normal ramp angles [grades] it might not make all that much difference. Drop axles and other trailer tricks will perhaps gain you useful inches lowering the waterline height. Uncoupling the trailer and winching it down the ramp might be necessary.

Tires on a double axle rated for 4000lb will be about 24" rolling diameter, so assuming a straight axle, add a foot of radius onto your three foot of draft. A 'one in ten' ramp will need to see you forty feet off-shore to fully float. That's a back of the envelope, worst-case but if plan A is backing the truck down the ramp then I'd maybe be looking for plan B.

On shore, you will be able to step a twenty foot mast unaided, unless it is abnormally heavy and awkward. Or perhaps I should say, I can, and I'm no bodybuilder.

[Ed Armstrong]

I used to trailer a 2'7" draft, 2000 lb. boat, which I now keep in a marina. The biggest issue for me was the time required to launch. It would take about 40-45 minutes to set up and about an hour to take down, perhaps a bit less if the ramp was steep enough so that I didn't need the 10-foot tongue extension. Given that much time, going for an afternoon daysail was pretty much out, and even a full day-sail on a weekend took something of a commitment. There's something to be said for a small, shallow-draft boat that can be launched in 15 minutes and taken down quickly. Now that I have the boat in a marina, most of my sailing is done in the evenings after work (except for this year, when I had to take the boat out of the water on the first of July due to low water levels from the drought we're experiencing in California).

If you plan on most of your sailing being weekend outings for a few days, or during sailing vacations, then a few extra inches of draft and/or poundage may not make that much difference.

BTW, I didn't have to worry about ramp length, because I sail foothill and mountain lakes that have long & deep ramps to allow boating while the reservoirs are drawn down in the fall for flood control. If your situation is different, and your ramps are primarily short and/or shallow, draft may be a real concern.

Ed

[Brian Palmer]

I have a 20 foot Elver, and it is a light boat (1200 lbs) for trailering and is easy to set up. It takes about 15 minutes to rig and launch and the same to take it down. One real time saver is the simplicity of the rig. The mainsail is furled to the mast and there is no standing rigging. The flip side is that it is not the most capable boat for real open waters. But, I think that will be a trade off that you will find with most boats. The heavier and more capable the boat, the hardier it will be to trailer and rig.

Brian

[RodB]

The following links show a 25 footer (over 4000 lbs disp) that can be launched on a beach and is easy to step the mast. The WB thread below covers a lot but many of the photos are not linked any more.... but the discussion will be of interest to you.

Also, how a mast is stepped on a tabernacle is quite open to solutions (looking at how fiberglass boats solve the problem on trailerable designs).

A trailer like Canoe Yawl's will work just about anywhere... with a keel/centerboard combination of less than 3 feet. the boat just rolls off the end of the trailer and drops in the water... Canoe Yawl has assured me that this same setup would work with the 26 foot (6000 lb) Alerion or even the 7000 lb Pleasure if you set up a custom rig to step the long mast. Naturally, you need a good truck...

http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e239/Prestoboat/beforegalvanizing-1.jpg

Good luck

RodB


http://www.canoeyawl.com/sally.htm

http://www.canoeyawl.com/trailer-sally.htm

http://www.woodenboat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2249&highlight=Wenda

[merlinron]

lots of good advice given already.... one thing to consider has to do with long term ownership of a boat that is "boarderline truely trailerable".
lots of bigger boats end up sitting on thier trailers because they get to be too much work to pull around, launch and land everytime you want to sail, especially as you get older.
truely trailerable, shallow draft boats are so much easier to lanch that they stay being used and enjoyed. enthusiasm drives the effort required when you first own a boat big enough to sail bigger waters on less frequent extended, maybe more"meaningful" cruises, but if you want to sail often, local lakes on the weekend sort of thing, the effort required chops away at the enthusiasm.
may be best to closely evaluate just how you want to enjoy the rewards of all your hard work building the boat, especially if you, like me, are a landlocked sailor.....
i used to have a star sloop but got tired of having to be locked into only a few lakes as far as draft and launching facilities. after a few years it's use dwindled to one or two times a year. i'll admit, both it's draft and it's rigging were the problem, even after modifying the rigg to eliminate most of it's adjustability for ease of set-up.
there are pleny of smaller truely trailerable boats that will serve you in a pinch as a cruiser a couple times a year and still be easy enough to launch for a saturday's afternoon of sailng fun.

[Woxbox]

That trailer RodB shows is perfect. I've done the routine with a 25' trimaran that was bulkier than your boat, but not as heavy. The key is to get the boat to ride as low as possible. I also put an extended tongue on the trailer, which got the trailer farther down the ramp. Floating the boat off the trailer is best, but not necessary. And you actually want to crank it into place on retrieval because that will center the boat on the trailer properly if the rollers and bunks are set up correctly.

As far as speeding things up by using a marina, I haven't found that to be much true. My current boat is in a slip, and till we clean it up, put everything away and give her a washdown, it's just as much time as it took to get the tri out of the water and ready for the road.

[Gary E]

As a starting point, let's assume a twenty footer that draws three feet and has a mast of approximately equal length (unknown weight)

All I can sugest is that you go to the ramp and observe those rigging their boats and getting them to float.

If you could go back in time to 1955 and see a bunch of Sea Scouts launch of a 19 ft Lightning, you will notice several guys, and these guys were not little, I was one of them and probably 6'3 or 4 at the time and the other kids were of like size...One in front of the boat tugging on the rope that pulls the sail up, yeah, I know it's name, but its still a rope, one off to each side tugging on the wire cable mast stays to help keep the mast straight as it goes up. Then inside the boat are the tallest guys lifting the mast in what might have looked like the Marines raising the flag on Iwo Jima...

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/a/a1/WW2_Iwo_Jima_flag_raising.jpg/300px-

After the mast is stuck into the hole in the deck and all those cables are attached to the deck, it was ready to back the trailer into the water and off we go...

I also remember the mast being a lot longer than the boat...
Now, what improvements might be made so you can do this all by yourself today?...
I'd love to see that on uTube..

[Todd D]

I have had two trailerable boats. The first was a 21' swing keel boat that weighed about 1,200 lbs. With the trailer, the towing weight was more like 1,800 lbs. It towed easily behind my 1962 Plymouth Valiant (225 slant 6). Since the boat had a swing keel it was easy to launch pretty much anywhere. The 25', deck stepped, mast was light enough that I could easily stand it up alone. Set-up and launching generally took about 30-45 minutes.

Later I had a 7.4 meter (24' 3") sloop that displaced 4,000 lbs and drew 3'4". It sat on a tandem wheel trailer that I towed with my F150 4x4 (5.0 liter V8). The boat plus trailer came in at about 6,000 lbs, but the truck handled it easily. I could only launch at steep ramps and even then I had to back down until the trailer wheels were almost in the water, block the wheels, unhitch the trailer, attach a rope between the trailer and the truck and then back down the rest of the way to float the boat off. Launching was a two person job. Stepping the mast (about 30' deck stepped spar) was a chore for two people, but doable. Set-up and launch generally took about 1.25-1.5 hours. Also, I always launched at times when the ramp wasnt busy because I wanted to avoid the ire of the power boaters that wanted to drop their boats in in 2-3 minutes and resented waiting for me.

With both of those boats, the hardest part was not launching, but getting the boat back on the trailer and back out of the water. Alinging both boats was a real pain even with guides. The 24' boot was worse than the 21 because the trailer was completely submerged except for two guide posts.

Now I have a 36' ketch and a 32' power boat. Both are trailer launched. The ketch takes about an hour to step the masts with three guys and a crane. Launching is a 5-10 minute job. I hire a boat hauler to transport the boat from my house to the ramp, step the spars (with my help) and launch the boat. I can only launch inside a 3 hour window centered on high tide since the boat draws 5'. The power boat only takes about 40 minutes to launch from the time the hauler shows up at my house.

[Canoeyawl]

On the road at Tomales Ca. 25 feet, 4000 lbs, about 1 hour to set up.
There are two obstacles to success, retrieval onto the trailer and stepping the mast.
If you create a guiding system on the trailer it becomes simple. Shamelessly copying the old E-Z Loader style of rollers and bunks I just get the boat near the trailer and hook up the winch and start pulling. I don’t even get my feet wet! No looking or shifting for the proper alignment. I have added an underwater guide to locate the keel exactly onto the rollers as the boat settles on to the trailer. These bear the entire weight of the boat.
The mast requires a tabernacle or similar system. I use the ship in a bottle technique. All the rigging (running and standing, including the topping lift, halyards, jib and flags) stays set up and one man can safely raise the main mast and set it with the one forestay pin at the stem. This rig complete weighs about 65lbs to lift and gets lighter as it goes up.
http://www.canoeyawl.com/trailer-sally.htm





http://www.gunkholing.org/Images/ben1.jpg

[Ed Armstrong]

Woxbox did a better job of articulating the point that I was trying to make...that while you CAN trailer heavier and deeper draft boats, you MAY get more enjoyment out of lighter, shallower draft, easier to set up boats if you trailer often. It depends upon how you want to sail and how much energy you have.

Ed

[InTheBeech]

Thanks so much fellas. I had similarly thought in terms of a ratio of sorts; that is I wouldn't mind spending an hour to launch and step if I used the boat for whole weekends. This kind of ratio made sense, but I would be using the boat for outings as short as a half of a day or to just get out in the evening to float around for a few hours. Giving this and the aparent need for an hour or more to launch and step, I think prudence must prevail and I limit my design search to truly trailer-intended models. So out goes that beautiful Alden Doublender and that Atkin Canoe Stern Knockabout; but it is for the best.
Anybody have a design for a classic, twenty foot, centerboard, short-masted, one ton version of Atkins' Eric jr.?
I'd like to see it.
Thanks again all. This was very useful.
Ed

[kenjamin]

How about an Oughtred Wee Seal?

http://www.jordanboats.co.uk/JB/IainO_Catalogue/Wee%20Seal.pdf

[Woxbox]

When I was looking for the biggest but easiest boat to trailer, launch and sail, I settled on Bolger's Martha Jane. I even bought the plans, but never did build it. She's 24' long but water ballasted, very shoal draft, and has a counter-balanced mast pivoted in a tabernacle. Everything designed to make it quick to slide into the water and sail. That would be a reasonable boat to take out for a couple of hours. To take the exercise a step further, look at the Bay Hen, a fiberglass boat, but with a cat-gaff rig in a tabernacle and with a rudder that doesn't need to be unshipped. You can even leave the sail on when you drop the mast. I think it's about 21' long.

Setting up the rig on even a small boat can take quite a bit of time if there are a lot of pieces, no matter how small and light, to pull out and fasten in place. I've seen people with Lightnings and Thistles spend a lot of time setting them up and putting things away. Just having a cuddy or cabin big enough to toss things into cuts down on the set-up and break-down time. It's not just about how big the boat is.