Trouper

[John Dean]

I can see an advert for the Trouper in the latest edition of Water Craft mag. However on the website it still seems confined to the 'on the drawing board' section. Is this still in development?
A second question: the weight of the trouper is about half that of similar craft eg New Cormorant, Farthing, Melonseed etc how is this achieved?

John

[Matt Newland]

Dear John,
Thanks for your comments. The T12 kits are nearly ready. We have taken several orders but are also about to move into our new workshop so things are pretty hectic here at the moment.

The weight is achieved by removing all non sailing items. Daggerboard, oars, rig and rudder all come out before car topping. The hull is also a monocoque construction in varying thinknesses of ply which makes it lighter than most other forms of construction. The bottom is a 9mm panel, the two garboard panels are 6mm and the side panesl and most of the internals are 4mm. In practice though, the boat is not as easy to roofrack as I had hoped and our customers for complete boats have all ordered small trailers too.

We may be looking to do a 10ft and 14ft version of the Trouper but we have other priorities at the present time.

Thanks again for your interest.

Matt