Elegant Taylor-made solution

Putting his 12m launch on a trailer proved the perfect solution for a Coromandel holiday home owner. Mike Rose reports:

It's a wonderfully Kiwi story. Faced with the problem of wanting a 12m launch but not liking the idea of a huge hassle every time he wanted to use it, Cooks Beach holiday home owner Keith Taylor did what generations of innovative New Zealanders have done before him: thought laterally and came up with a simple but elegant solution; keep the launch on a trailer.

Cooks Beach, on the eastern side of the Coromandel Peninsula, lies just beyond Cathedral Cove and across the water from popular Whitianga. It has a lovely, mostly sheltered, long white-sand beach, just a few shops and a boat ramp, tucked safely away in an estuary. What it doesn't have is a marina.

And that was the dilemma for Taylor. A businessman, a farmer, a keen family man and a just-as-keen boatie, Taylor wanted a bigger boat. He had enjoyed his two trailer boats, a Rayglass 650 and, more latterly, a Rayglass Legend 2150.

However, he wanted something that would safely accommodate his expanding family (more grandchildren) and allow him and his wife, Deb, to stay out overnight, or longer.

After finding a suitable boat (the couple saw a Rayglass Legend 4000 at a boat show and immediately decided it was what they wanted), the problem was where to keep it.

The nearest marina to their holiday home at Cooks Beach is in Whitianga. Getting to the marina from their house involves either a 40-minute journey by car or a five-minute drive to Ferry Landing, a trip across the bay to Whitianga and a walk to the marina: all laden with provisions and young children. Not surprisingly, neither appealed.

A few months later, the Taylors attended another boat show and saw the Legend 4000 sitting on a trailer. It was, says Taylor, a eureka moment.

"I realised this would solve all our problems. We bought the 4000 on the spot, without even having been for a sea trial."

The result is what could very well be New Zealand's largest non-commercial trailer boat.

The Taylors' Legend 4000, Pensatore (aptly "Thinker" in Italian), lives on its slightly modified Rayglass trailer, on the back lawn of their Cooks Beach property.

When they want to go boating, they don't have to load a car or carry their gear on and off a ferry. They don't even have to walk down a marina pier. Taylor simply fires up the tractor, pulls the 4000 alongside the back porch and all the necessary provisions, fishing or diving gear and other equipment is handed on. While that's happening, the water tanks are being filled.

It is, say the Taylors with some pride, a pretty painless operation.

Once everything is on board, the tractor tows the 4000 the kilometre or two to the ramp where it slides almost effortlessly into the estuary.

"Tony Hembrow [chief executive at Rayglass Boats] told me we would launch the 4000 quicker than the 2150 and he was absolutely right," jokes Taylor.

It certainly seems that way. On the day I visited, Taylor was launching his 4000 for just the second time by himself (normally his son is on board and he gets to drive the tractor).

He positioned the trailer on the ramp, lowered the pressure on the air suspension and released the winch. He then hopped on board, started the engines and drove the 4000 off the trailer and to a nearby mooring.

It was a one-man operation and took far less time than many of the "whole-family-helping" launchings I've witnessed at other ramps.

While the main motivation for the trailer was the convenience of not having to shift gear back and forth to the marina, the Taylors quickly discovered their novel approach had other benefits, too.

For example, Taylor expects his maintenance costs to be far lower than would be normally be the case for this sort of vessel. Pensatore is powered by twin Cummins Mercruiser QSD 320 common rail diesels on Bravo 2 legs.

"It's great being able to keep the legs out of the water for most of the time," he says. "I'm sure that will mean less maintenance. For example, the anodes are showing virtually no signs of decay."

Another saving comes from not having to apply, and then reapply, antifouling paint.

"We took delivery of Pensatore in December, sailed her to Cooks Beach and left her in the water, either being used or on the mooring [Taylor has his mooring across the road from his house] for 10-12 days.

"When we pulled her out there were no fouling issues at all."

Taylor estimates that the trailer, with all its modifications, owes him about $40,000. He admits he probably went overboard on his tractor: it has a cab, air-conditioning and sundry other "fruit" and probably is worth $20,000.

That means the exercise of keeping the 4000 on a trailer has cost the Taylors about $60,000, plus a reasonable amount of time perfecting the trailer set-up - a sum well shy of the $250,000 or more they would have had to spend to buy a 14m berth in the Whitianga marina.

The arrangement is the ideal set up for the Taylors.

"The Legend 4000 is the perfect boat for us, it's like an extension of our beach house," they say.

"We have three adult children and our daughter has two kids. We can all go boating for a whole day or even overnight and getting everyone and everything on board and off again is so completely hassle-free.

"The end result is that we use the boat far more. In the first four months we did over 90 hours - fishing, diving and spending very high-quality time with the family."

And there is another advantage, too.

"With the boat safely on the trailer in the backyard, I don't have to worry when the forecast turns sour."

Contact Marine editor Mike Rose on (09) 483 8284; 021 735 015 or email: mrpr@xtra.co.nz.