What boat to buy?

This infatuation with everyone sailing the same things is also fatally flawed as I've said time and again when you're new. Better to have something faster than everyone else, at least then you get to sail closer to the front with the sort of folk you can learn from.

Sail the same thing and you're destined for a long wait at the back of the fleet, sometimes forever, OK some folk don't mind that, but it can get very tedious and drive down your sailing self esteem. Needlessly.

South Cerney Sailing Club

Originally posted by Rupert I've never paid £400 for a towbar. In Swindon, Barry Heather have done all of mine over the years, they will come and fit it. You will need a trailer board as well as a trailer. A combi is where the trolley slides onto a road base, rather than a separate trailer with pads of its own. If you need one, I have one for sale near Swindon, or if you just need one to collect a boat, then borrowing it would be fine. Which club are you at?

Typically a fully specified boat will have a road trailer and a launching trolley.

Road trailers are inconvenient in the dinghy park because they are heavy, not generally designed for towing by hand, and because immersion will likely damage the wheel bearing sooner or later.

Launching trolleys are much lighter, adapted for pulling round by hand, but cannot be used as road trailers - effectively they have wheelbarrow wheels which are not capable of running over about 5mph or for any great distance.

A combi trailer is a matched pair of road and launching trolleys where the road trailer has no superstructure to support the boat, instead the launching trolley is slid up onto the road trailer for road transport.

If you have a separate road trailer and launching trolley you have to find a way of transporting the launching trolley when you travel.

Naturally most road trailers spend their entire life getting overgrown in corners of dinghy parks or cluttering up garages...

95% of trailers around at the moment won't have lights, you need a separate lighting board, but very recent trailers will have built in lights. That's due to a law change and is by no means a good thing.

You will need a number plate to match your car/van, and they are a bit awkward to get now because of legislation changes, you need to supply some identification of you/the vehicle: forget the details. As usual with such legislation it has almost no effect on the bad guys, but greatly inconveniences the innocent...

Thank you all for the advice, much appreciated. I will keep on looking. I am wondering if now is a good or bad time to be looking for a boat. I reckon demand might be down, but also people have to renew their berths, which might be a good incentive. However, I don't see that many boats coming on in Apolloduck.

Another thing I am wondering about is trailers. Advertisements mention road trailers and combi trailers. Is there a difference?

also assume I buy a towbar. I guess I will need electrics as well for lights. Do these trailers have lights or do I buy them separately? And will I need a number plate?

As Jim says, get a single hander and use a club boat for the 2 handed stuff.

failing that: a Laser Radial would suit you for single handing. Get a full rig for extra grunt when double handing. They are quite comfortable with 2 lightish adults.....massive compromise 2 handing a single hander though and nothing for the crew to do apart from help balance.