Trouper 12

The Trouper 12 has been designed from the outset to be an easily car topped boat, with enough room inside for a family of four. She has been designed to be easily completed by home builders from a full kit, or we can build one for you, to any stage of completion.

The side decks give a clean, sweeping look

Her construction is a combination of stitch and tape and computer cut clinker (lapstrake). In the kit, all plywood shapes (and most of the solid timber too) is cut by computer to avoid you having to build upside down over moulds or cut plank shapes yourself. Like all our kit boats, this one is simple to assemble, right way up, with little temporary bracing required. She has a flat 9mm marine ply bottom panel (which makes assembly even easier), and a further four planks each side forming an attractive hull shape - you hardly notice that she has a flat bottom. The top two planks overlap the one underneath giving a pleasing glued clinker effect (lapstrake in the US). To keep the weight down, most of the rest of the hull is constructed with 6 and 4mm marine ply and a combination of other durable timbers. Stripped of her floorboards, rig and daggerboard she only weighs 52kg (115lbs) putting her well under the weight limit for most roof racks.

The standard rig will be a balanced lug, but a jib headed gunter will be an option as well as a ketch

The layout inside has been chosen for a number of reasons. The side decks give additional seating space but more importantly, they provide a place for the boat to rest, when upside down on the roof bars of an average car roof rack.  If the roof bars came out to the full 1.63m width they would get in the way constantly when no boat was on the roof, and we don’t think bars this long are available commercially anyway. If you dont fancy car topping her, we can easily supply a small road trailer which can double as a launching trolley.
She is rated as a category D boat under the Recreational Craft Directive, with plenty of buoyancy under the side decks and in the bow chamber. As such she should be ideal for young families or nervous/inexperienced crew members.

The transom is curved using jigs provided. Although slightly more work it is much more pleasing to the eye

Her standard rig is almost as simple as it gets, in keeping with the overall philosophy of the design. We think the balanced lug is very suitable,  the boom can be hoisted high enough to clear most peoples heads and the rig is so fast to set up you can see why it is popular.
However, to give young family members something to do, and to give increased sail area for the same spar lengths, we have also designed the fore and aft rigged version, with a gunter rigged main and jib, similar to the mirror dinghy.

The simple rig will be very fast to set up on an unstayed mast

The floorboards house the 8.5ft long oars and keep the feet out of any bilge water. They are removable which reduces the weight to be car topped and makes cleaning the inside of the boat easier. The daggerboard is positioned up forward and there is enough room aft of it for a 6 foot adult to stretch out and perhaps spend the night aboard if so inclined. There are plans for a small spray hood up front under the boom and this could be extended into a full cockpit tent.

The faint lines you can see on the hull are mesh limits on our software. They indicate positions of internal bulkheads. The forward one is a draining anchor well. Between it and the next is buoyancy

The transom hung rudder is fairly conventional, with a tiller protruding through the transom enabling a custom name board to be engraved and positioned in clear sight. The rudder will kick up in conventional fashion, but with all the parts computer cut it is very straightforward to assemble.
There is space for a small folding style grapnel anchor up in a draining compartment in the bow and space for a 2HP outboard offset to one side on the transom. If a short shaft is used then the transom height should be cut down in the vicinity of the engine for the prop to reliably reach the water. There are two rowing positions to suit different crew loadings and two could even row her in tandem. Due to her weight, she is a real pleasure to row.

A Fore and aft rigged Trouper 12 will also be available as an option.

If you would like more information or would like to be kept informed of progress, then please fill in the form below and we will get back to you with any questions.