rotomoulded, weldable virtually maintenance free for a family - the ideal plaything for youngsters in their early to late teens, and smaller adults. This boat forms the backbone of many sailing schools' young person fleet, it is forgiving and hard to destroy - especially when working from a beach. Why Topper? - Because it is car toppable, needing only a bit of muscle to get it on and off the roofrack you can then manage with a minimal launching trolley. There is nothing which suffers from salt water - the main consumable being the sail - unbattened, no windows etc, this is pretty durable and in family sailing will last the life of the hull - just so long as you don't want to finish at the front of the fleet all the time. "Come on" I hear you say - "there must be some drawbacks!" OK I will come clean, we have a fleet of 42 Toppers, 12 on two trailers, and the rest at our main sailing base. For teaching use we take out the self-bailers - they tend to break and then work in reverse - rather like the way steam trains used to take on water! If they are run smack! into something else - usually something very solid - they do tend to split along the seam - especially on the nose - check this out if you are buying secondhand. If you have access to a hot air welder - rather like a psychopathic hair dryer - then you can quite easily fix it, or get it fixed. Oh, yes - tie the rudder assembly onto the boat - it doesn't float! That about sums it up - we regualrly push novices out on these (in favourable conditions) with the minimum intro ashore, then work through follow my leader exercises afloat - they can come having never sailed before, and go home having sailed - in charge of their own boat and gagging for more! Wot do they cost? We get um cheap, but you should be looking at well under 2K brand new - get um from Topper International - second hand, they've been around for a long time, they hold their price well, but you should get a middle aged one for less than 500 pounds (sorry the pound sign doesn't work on my keyboard!)- an older one could set you back 2-300 with original sail, and still give years of fun - like an old Volvo, you will be able to sell it for the same money when the kids grow out of it. Given a good blow - say around a F6, even lardy boys like me can have a really good blast. A boat for most of the people, most of the time - as long as you don't mind a wet bum.
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I do love Toppers, always have and always will but as I grew older I started sailing Lasers more. Still a Topper is my second choice in singlehanded boat.
SueMagee 15.04.2003 10:39
I'm just chuckling about the thought of a psychopathic hair dryer!
Advantages: you dont need to know much to be able to sail a topper all you realey need to know is how to put the mast in and put the boom (wich is the horizontal pole) they are very boyant and made from a strong fibre glass hull the boat its self goes quite fast Disadvantages: they can capsize if not handeld properly
Advantages: you dont need to know much to be able to sail a topper all you realey need to know is how to put the mast in and put the boom (wich is the horizontal pole) they are very boyant and made from a strong fibre glass hull the boat its self goes quite fast Disadvantages: they can capsize if not handeld properly
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