Sailing Boats > Phantom Sailing Boats

Advantages: Vertually indistructable
Disadvantages: Hard to have more than one person on board unless you like getting wet

The Topper is an excellent youth boat. It is the perfect progression towards sailing larger single handed dingys when you get older. It is now even better than when I sailed it. You can now modify it to have a centre main sheet which again aids the transfer to more powerful boats in the future. It is great for people new to the sport and can take the battering of children or the not so in control sailors. I for one have had 12 people on it at once ...
...and help. Unlike on the Topper where my Dad has spent many days cramed under the kicker. Children can also go out together which can boost in some cases confidence. On the Topper you usually end up with one person on the nose of the boat, which can have some comical consequences of the boat nose diving as we call it, where it gets pushed under water. This in itself became a reason to want to go out on the Topper. My brother and I have managed to ... Read review

Advantages: easy way to get out on the water, 2nd hand can be picked up cheaply
Disadvantages: not really a performance boat

...up a cheap second hand topper (approx £450). The boat requires little to no maintainence and is ready to sail whenever I am nearby and the wind is blowing (hopefully not too much). It has a plastic (technical term!!) hull and deck and one sail. The boat is easily transported on top of a car and can be easily stored down the side of a house. It really is a very adaptable boat. The title calls it a junior boat--this is a little misleading as it is ...
...onto more performance boats, the topper does have its own great racing circuit for juniors. The fact that the boat is used by so many sailing schools and holiday venues really does show how versatile and useful these little boats are. Other boats have come along in recent years as competitiors to the topper and maybe for some people they are more appropriate, realistically though I can't see the topper being beaten for value for money (certainly ... Read review

Advantages: Sturdy for learning in, can be fun
Disadvantages: Very little room to duck under the boom

...to attach these to the topper under instruction, and then we were given a short demonstration of how to use them, by an instructor on land. Then we had to go and practice the things which we had just been shown in our pairs before taking to the water. We were mainly practicing ducking under the boom without getting tangled up in the raopes that were attached to the sails. My experience of these boats: If you already know anything about topper you ...
...the day. For potential Topper users/buyers: If you are interested in sailing toppers but haven't done that much sailing, or any at all I would highly recommend trying it at some where like Tower Wood. I read one of the other reviews before writing mine, and saw just how expensive Toppers are. Also you will need, or at least I would highly recommend some sort of life jacket or bouyancy aid, and suitable clothing ie Wet suit (or as I myself wold ... Read review

Advantages: fun, fast, great in light winds, well designed
Disadvantages: light, can be expensive, manoevrability with outboard

...have never looked back! Our Beneteau First 211 was just over a year old when we bought her. She was fitted out with many accessories e.g. spinnaker and pole, teak rails, yacht club upholstery. She is a beautiful boat with a spacious cockpit, well designed cabin (4 berths (1 double, 2 singles), small sink (no running water), small gas cylinder stove, cabin toilet under double bunk). Mainsail and furling genoa, tiller rather than wheel. She has an ...
...badly in that it was too low on the bracket and therefore was very difficult to use to manoeuvre and also got swamped very quickly. The outboard is now higher on the bracket and much easier to use. As the boat is very light (only approx 1 tonne), she gets blown around quite a bit and can be very difficult to manoeuvre on the outboard in strong winds, especially at low revs. Takes a bit of practice but we are now much more confident. Sailing wise, ... Read review

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

...are going in an your topper and you run aground or crash into something wich cracks or punctures the hull or ruptures any I have been on sailing lessons and the boat I was taught on was a topper. After I completed the course I went to the loch which rented them out from then on I go at least every second week in all types of weather so my dad finally decided to get me a topper. So he phoned the dinghy store and they ordered me one in. they can be ...
...are going in an your topper and you run aground or crash into something which cracks or punctures the hull or ruptures any part of the boat you wont need to take it to a repair store, you can just paste some fibre glass on it. You can take the topper to the coast and sail there for free and you can also enter sailing competitions. If these boats are looked after they will last for decades they also require very little maintenance, they are very ... Read review