To tow or not to tow?

[marekp]

Hello all. New to the forum, so not quite sure if this is the right place, but wondering if there might be some good advice out there?

I have a little wooden sailing boat sitting on a trailer in Sussex and want to move it home to the North Norfolk coast so I can finally get it sea worthy again.

I don't have a tow bar currently and am planning to change my car in the next few months, so I'm wondering whether anyone knows of a place to hire a car with a tow bar for a couple of days? It doesn't seem economical to pay a few hundred quid to install the tow bar a few months before changing the vehicle...

The old wreck of a boat was built by Grandad and now has sentimental value only, so I'm trying to get it closer to home to finish the restoration without having to spend big £££s on tow transport.

Any advice would be much appreciated. Thanks, and hope as a newbie I found the right place to post this

[B'stard Child]

I've looked in the past for companies that rent cars with towbars and been unsuccessful - did find one firm that had a van with a towbar but the weren't too keen on it pulling 2000 kgs and based on it's size neither was I

If you are looking at driving from Norfolk to Sussex and back again surely it makes more sense to get a quote from Shipley or similar?

[marekp]

Thanks for the reply. The trailer is quite light, under 750 kg including the boat, but good point - I guess I'd need to find someone who has it specifically set-up for towing hire. On location, to clarify - I live in Norfolk, so would plan to drive it from here, down to the boat in Sussex, then bring it back home and drop the tow vehicle back to its start point in Norfolk.

[B'stard Child]

marekp said:

Thanks for the reply. The trailer is quite light, under 750 kg including the boat, but good point - I guess I'd need to find someone who has it specifically set-up for towing hire.

Exactly

marekp said:

On location, to clarify - I live in Norfolk, so would plan to drive it from here, down to the boat in Sussex, then bring it back home and drop the tow vehicle back to its start point in Norfolk.

Yeah got that from the original post - point I was making was by the time you've hired a car/van with a trailer pulling facility and then fueled it up to do Norfolk to Sussex and back again you'd probably be better sticking the details into shipley and seeing what they com back with for a delivered to your door zero hassle and no time wasted option.

[marekp]

Thanks, I'd not heard of Shiply before. I'll take a look at that and see what kind of quotes come back.

I'm probably going to have to go down to Sussex myself anyway before it is moved to get a few things ready, so it might still make sense to do the journey myself if I can find a suitable tow vehicle.

[Konan]

Might be a long shot, but a while ago we rented a van with a tow bar from Wroxham Vehicle Hire.

[marekp]

Thanks, I'll see if I can get a quote from them.

[steve954]

Biggest question is are you old enough to have towing rights or not?

[Konan]

steve954 said:

Biggest question is are you old enough to have towing rights or not?

He's indicated that the loaded trailer is around 750Kg. There's a chance that it can be towed without class E, but it's going to be rather dependent on the MAM of the trailer (plate or load indicated by tyres if without a plate).

Towing's a minefield if you don't have the old entitlements, but small trailers can often be pulled without.

[marekp]

Thanks, I'm covered on the license and have towed several times before, just no longer have the car with the towing set-up (a sorely missed Saab Aero...).

[steve954]

Well if you get stuck I maybe able to tow it back for a small fee plus diesel.