We have both setups, (ie... car top, and a harbor freight trailer) for our TI's. We have a tow behind camper that uses the hitch when we travel so we can't use our trailer. We travel a lot so we have a couple hundred thousand miles with hobies on the roof and camper in tow. Whem local in Florida we much prefer not to car top, and way prefer towing the fully rigged ti on our trailer.
Our TI's are kind of complex (by design), because they are hardened for offshore and massively souped up for performance with 3 masts, massive sailsets, and twin outboards. Since underwater visability goes to zero whenever it gets windy and wavy we tend to only ever go out in very low winds and very flat water, so our boats are designed around that, (basically I refuse to go 2-3mph), thus the mods. When fully rigged the full boat is simply too heavy for me to try to move around. So in order to car top we have to strip the hull down to nothing, with everything removed, (ie... AMA's, seats, mirage drives, sails, masts, etc). When completely stripped the hull weighs around 100lbs, the hull itself is actually no more difficult to get on the roof than our old canoes, or our old Oasis was. I always do all that by myself, and actually that part doesn't take long, (getting the hull on or off the roof). My chief complaints about car topping are.
When used in mostly salt water, your going to wreck your car (salt).
Once the hull is down from the roof it takes us a good hour to completely set the boat up again, (mounting the AMA's, tramps, motors, sails and rigging, etc), NOT FUN... we typically only do that once, when we arrive, then remove everything and strip it all back down again a week or two later when we leave, not fun. We typically beach the boat for the duration, or anchor just offshore. It's definately not fun, but the only other alternative is leave our only family boat at home, (sucks). Also rolling the fully loaded boat around on a scupper cart is too much for me.
In contrast when local, our boat lives fully rigged on the trailer in our garage, takes all of 5 minutes to hook up and tow to any launch, then 15 minutes from pulling up to the water and pulling away, (minimal lifting, (we have a boat winch on the trailer). When we get home, we rinse boat in the drive, then pull it in the garage, ready for next time. Just stuff to think about... FE
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