DIY keelboat launching trailer

Sam Longley designs and builds a slipway boat launching trailer

- Sam Longley

My daughter Sarah and I own a Squib sailing boat. It works like this – she sails it, I pay for it. Daughter rights, I’m told! It is called The Comfy Chair, which, Monty Python aficionados will know, is the torture for the little old lady in the Spanish Inquisition sketch. Sarah races The Comfy Chair at Stone Sailing Club with Edd, a friend of ours.

In the winter the boat is kept at Edd’s house 300 yards from the club, accessed along a private, unmade road.

During the season we keep the boat on my mooring in the river Blackwater. Although the hull is coated with Copper- Tek (similar to Coppercoat but no longer sold in UK), Edd hauls the boat out at least every 3-4 weeks to jet wash the hull for racing.

To do this we have a launching trailer; to put our road trailer in the water would be inadvisable as the brakes and bearings etc would soon corrode. The problem is that our existing launching trailer is now rusting severely and is beyond repair, so I had to design and build a new one.

I feel that my design, being reasonably economic in its construction, may be of use to others. Many owners store their boats on the hard at yacht clubs and road trailers are not necessary, unless moving on to the highway.

Designer trailer

For the initial design I drew up a list of requirements.

• I wanted to use angle iron for the main structural members. The original had single box sections and these just rusted from the inside out and could not be painted for protection.

• I also wanted to use bolted connections instead of welded joints. I have a welder, but by using bolts the trailer can be dismantled if we need to move elsewhere, or if we need to store it somewhere. Also, any parts that rust can be unbolted and changed.