Trailer sailer
Most trailer sailers also feature ballast, either fixed or in a swinging centreboard or dagger board to make them easier to launch and retrieve.
Sails on trailer sailers can also be lowered easily on water unlike dinghies which are often rigged fully on the shore.
Because they can be towed and stored at home, owners can avoid the mooring fees and maintenance costs of boats that remain in the water.
Moreover, trailer sailers are generally more lightly-built and ballasted, making them incapable of tackling open oceans, confining them to coastal and protected waters.
[8] The advent of mass production fibreglass boats in the mid 1960s saw an expansion of trailer sailer designs, such as the Aquarius 21[9] Boomerang 20,[10] Cal 21,[11] Careel 18,[12] Neptune 16,[13] and Pearson 22.
A large number were initially sold in North America in areas such as Arizona, New Mexico and the Great Lakes region.
[2] In the late 1980s and early 1990s trailer sailers evolved into sportsboats, of a similar size but more optimised for racing speed with reduced accommodation and lightweight hulls.
[A] Cabins in trailer sailers are usually arranged with dual purpose settee-berths running along the side of the boat from a V-berth at the bow, to quarter berths underneath the cockpit.
Usually, the centreboard or daggerboard trunk encroaches into the cabin in the middle of the boat, but can form the base for a folding table.
Some boats address this problem using cabin pop-tops that can be raised when not underway to provide additional head room.
Usually, trailer sailers have a head, which is most commonly a portable toilet, mounted in the bow V-berth area of the cabin.
The practical limit for the length of such boats is 26 ft (7.92 m), although some trailer sailers such as the Robb Legg 28 or the Gougeon 32 are longer.
Certainly if one is on a limited budget but wants a refined, good sailing, capable boat, one should consider a previously owned ... fixed-keel vessel.
On such boats, raising the mast by brute force requires significant strength and is beyond the abilities of smaller, frail and short-handed crews.
A third method is to attach a pole to the winch post on the trailer and haul the mast upwards once again with the forestay, which also requires additional equipment.
Outboards offer the advantage of being light, easy to use and maintain and are also inexpensive, as they are commercially produced on a large scale and sold off-the-shelf.
This contrasts with inboard diesel engines which are heavy and occupy significant internal space and are best suited to larger vessels.
Long shaft outboard motors are advantageous, as they prevent the propeller from exiting the water and over-speeding when the boat rides over waves.
