A large trailer sailer....... Kind of.

[thesaltytar]

This one is for you @Grith.

I bow before the wisdom of having a trailerable sailboat if one is to not live aboard. Hard to argue. The problem is I already have a boat I like. So I'm wondering if it can be trailered.

Of course I've seen houses on trailers so we need to define "trailerable." Let's say launching using a travel lift and a crane for the sticks. So boat yard launch. Preferably not involving a semi.

36' (10.9m) long on deck if I pull the bowsprit, draws 4'-10" (1.47m) with a 9' beam (2.7m) Wide load. Barely. Never had her weighed; tried but no working scale. Say maximum of 9 long tons (9.1 metric tonnes / close to 158k standard gerbils).

I figure some individuals haul their boats around for racing/competition purposes, so maybe this is possible. They probably weigh less. Maybe it's feasible. Maybe it isn't.

[thesaltytar]

I realize that was one long run-on expository statement.

Does anyone have experience hauling around a larger trailerable boat? Is this approach feasible?

[siamese]

What...you gonna haul that thing around behind your Subaru? Keep it in your backyard and take it to the launch on weekends?

What are you talking about here, anyway? What's the plan?

[Sailmonkey]

How often do you plan on launching this thing?

A boat of that size isn’t just a show up someplace and get it lifted and mast set. It’s got to be fit into a schedule.

Then comes the hauling. That’s a big thing on a trailer. I know lots of RVs are larger, but nowhere near as heavy.

[MarkSF]

I used to have a trailerable boat, but now I have one in a marina, even though I don't live aboard.

The massive inconvenience of launching and retrieving a sailboat every time I wanted to go sailing outweighs the cost of keeping one in a marina, for me. YMMV.

[rslifkin]

Given a sufficiently large truck and appropriate trailer, yes, a boat that size could be trailered (getting oversize permits for a 9 foot beam isn't hard in most places). The issue would be that you can't ramp launch it due to the keel. So you'd have to arrange a yard to haul and launch it, and you'd also likely need access to a gin pole to step the masts.



In other words, for very occasional transport, yes, it can be done. But doing it regularly would be rather impractical.

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by thesaltytar

Does anyone have experience hauling around a larger trailerable boat? Is this approach feasible?

First - what are your goals for trailering? To get somewhere faster than simply sailing/motoring? To go to other bodies of water that aren't practical to get to otherwise?

My suggestion would be to keep your primary boat and use her as usual, and now spend $2k to maybe $8k on a decent or fixable smaller trailerable sailboat to scratch that itch.

Or... find a friend with a trailerable sailboat and ask to borrow/rent it.

We have a small trailerable sailboat that we keep at a slip AND we tow it here and there occasionally.

[thesaltytar]

My thinking was more along the lines of switching up annual cruising grounds.

Skip the ICW and cruise Maine, extending the cruising season by at least a couple weeks. Or go to the opposite coast and cruise the PNW one year, maybe the inside passage the next year, skipping Panama and a number of other countries. The Great Lakes might be another destination. Southern California. Chesapeake.

It may put a lot of long range cruising destinations into a more manageable striking distance without having the boat trapped up north (or far away) by winter or work in case my schedule changes last minute. I had the incident two years ago where my contract got extended a month which pushed all of my plans back accordingly and it resulted in my boat being in Maine about 10 months longer than I anticipated because it wrenched the gears and the sailing season is so short. Once the schedule gets mixed up sometimes the ripple effects are far reaching.

So one trip every year or other year, possibly scheduling around planned maintenance haul outs, possibly a "whoops it's getting cold" cross country drive home. Wherever there is a travel lift, there should be a crane, I wouldn't really consider anything else for the relatively minor expense.

[psk125]

Contact Brownell Boat Transport in Mattapoisett MA. This is what they do since 1954. They know what they're doing and do it well.
https://www.brownellboattransport.com

[Grith]

I appreciate the reference and understand not wanting to change out of a boat you love.
However humping around something that big is a fairly massive logistical exercise and you would really want to be keen on changing cruising grounds to bother trying in my view.
As stated above I feel professional boat movers would be your best bet but just wait for the quote!
To move a trailer sailer across Australia four years ago the quote was about US $3000. That was for a trailer sailer that could be winched up onto a flatbed truck so easily. No cranes involved, no custom cradles, delivery to a transport yard not included.
I eventually drove across the country myself doing a road trip with my then 15yo daughter one way and sent her back to school by air and then my best friend and I did the towing road trip back and I flew him back to his home.
It was still way cheaper than having it delivered and much more fun.
We slept in the yacht in the middle of the desert and played dodgem with huge road trains.
This was a combined nearly 5000 mile round trip.

[Grith]

Originally Posted by MarkSF

I used to have a trailerable boat, but now I have one in a marina, even though I don't live aboard.

The massive inconvenience of launching and retrieving a sailboat every time I wanted to go sailing outweighs the cost of keeping one in a marina, for me. YMMV.

Hi Mark
You don’t have to launch and retrieve every time just because it’s a trailer sailer. Your going to pay for a mooring or marina anyway with a keel boat and you can just keep your trailer sailer in the water and step on board to sail until you want to sail elsewhere, take it home for maintenance ( or to a professional shop without huge callout fees) or to safely store over winter if you are not choosing to trailer it to warmer climates.��
For most of us we are not sailing with a huge bunch of people onboard so a decently large trailer sailer can provide adequate accommodation for a couple for weeks at least. My partner and I have just stepped back off our trailer sailer after nearly 6 weeks living onboard. Unlike a keel boat we were able to access walking right from the yacht most days.
I understand it’s not for everyone but it is a feasible alternative depending on your sailing goals.

[thesaltytar]

Several good points have been brought up.

1) Commercial transport.
Thank you for the recommendation psk125, I will request a quote to gather data points. I recall in the past being quoted somewhere around 10k for a California to Georgia transport and about 7-8k for Maine to Georgia. Part of this expense is probably using their trailer. I will see about getting a second quote for if I were to use my own trailer.

2) Vehicle.
As for vehicle, yes, the Subaru is out. I think it is safe to say bumper towing is also out. So this is a goose neck type arrangement. So I would either have to A) purchase said vehicle, B) hire out transport (see above), or C) rent a nice big diesel dually for the transport and have the vehicle returned. I have requested a quote for this at https://www.cityrentatruck.com/ to get a baseline rental cost. It's bound to be cheaper than owning one.

3) Trailer.
Obviously another important expense would be the trailer. I have submitted information to https://www.loadmasterboattrailer.com/for a quote. The trailer would also have to be stored when not used, so this is another expense factor, but I could probably arrange this with whatever marina I keep the boat at.

4) Second boat.
There were a couple recommendations of getting a second boat. It's not unreasonable. Consider the Imexus is pushing a $100k. I doubt a $8k day sailor will be up to task, even a used MacGregor would be more than twice that. I'm looking to have an extended cruising season in different areas.

This is just an exercise to crunch some numbers and see how feasible it is to (in a relatively easy fashion) change cruising grounds without taking the long way round. It may be cheaper to just outsource the commercial transport and it will be interesting to see how many trips it would require to "break even" and also calculate the maintenance costs of the trailer.

Thank you for your input, I will update as I hear back.

[Grith]

You don’t have to look at expensive trailer sailers like mine which was about US$45,000 still like brand new secondhand. That was a luxury I could afford compared to the at least double to over 4x that price for older secondhand catamaran cruisers that I was contemplating to do my planned 3-4 month exploration of the spectacular but remote, shallow, high tidal range and basically uncharted Kimberley’s region here in Australia.
My friends have cruised their Court 750 trailer sailer in those waters for over 30 years now and here in Australia one of those would cost under US$10,000.and the larger RL28 which I also carefully reviewed would be about US$15,000 here. I am sure there are equivalent trailer sailers in the US.
Based on your move prices two moves and you would have purchased outright either of these.
The photo below is of our Imexus and Eric and Flo’s Court 750 during a recent nearly 6 weeks cruising together trip.

[NPCampbell]

A diesel F350/450 will pull that. That trailer weight isn't excessive so I would expect the tongue weight on the goose neck to be the limitation.

As others have mentioned, anything over 8.5 feet typically requires a permit ... and they ain't cheap. The height limit is something in the 12-14 foot range so the mast will have to be removed.

In Texas, I think it is maybe $250 to get an oversized permit to go across the state and you can't travel at night. There are a few states that will require an escort vehicle.

[rslifkin]

Originally Posted by NPCampbell

A diesel F350/450 will pull that. That trailer weight isn't excessive so I would expect the tongue weight on the goose neck to be the limitation.

As others have mentioned, anything over 8.5 feet typically requires a permit ... and they ain't cheap. The height limit is something in the 12-14 foot range so the mast will have to be removed.

In Texas, I think it is maybe $250 to get an oversized permit to go across the state and you can't travel at night. There are a few states that will require an escort vehicle.

For the permits, over-width is usually pretty simple until you're getting up to around 10 feet wide. Over height (anything over 13'6" from road to highest point) is a much bigger deal and often requires escorts, etc.