Trailersailer

Etap20 is an unsinkable trailersailer -sailboat that has been designed to be easily transported using a road trailer. The boat can be kept at home in a garage, thus saving mooring fees. She can be easily taken by road to new destinations from which to sail. Etap20 is rigged and launched in half an hour.

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Design

In 1980 the manufacturing company ETAP YACHTING decided to create a high quality yacht for boating enthusiasts looking for a high degree of comfort, and safety. Familiar with the use of reinforced synthetic material in the manufacturing of light fittings, ETAP commissioned the famous designer E. G. van de Stadt and introduced a concept of very specific nature: the third double skinned, unsinkable boat: the ETAP20 after ETAP22 and ETAP28.

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The boat sails nicely and handles rather like a big dinghy. She has a simple, open-plan interior with four berths and reasonable headroom under a raised, semi-flush deck. There is space for a simple cooker. The lifting keel box takes up remarkably little room. The ETAP20 is self-righting, but the ballast keel which keeps her upright is retractable. When it's raised, she can explore the shallowest creeks.

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Unsinkability

Etap20 uses double-skinned hull and deck. The spaces between the two skins, and several other pockets throughout the hull and deck, are packed with closed-cell polyurethane foam. According to the only standard of unsinkability (that of the French Merchant Marine), unsinkability means that freeboard is reduced by less than 3% of LOA when flooded. She shouldn’t actually sink, should flood close to deck level.