Boat Trailer Campers

Sometimes the best way to experience boating and fishing is to really get away from it all: head out to some distant campground, set up the tent and cruise the tinny out to a sweet fishing hole, someplace where you don't have to race any competitive anglers or slosh through big boat wake to get there.

Of course, as tempting as it may be to load all the extra camping gear into the boat on the trailer for the car trip, most trailers - and their tyres - are simply not built to handle the extra weight.

Enter a company with the interesting name of Swamp Donkey and its equally interesting camper trailer, the Offroad Angler. Keith Adkins, proprietor of Swamp Donkey, has designed a boat trailer with a camper on top. As a normal boat trailer would not stand up to the anticipated use, Adkins, a metal fabricator by trade, designed and built his own: a camper trailer that also fulfils normal boating requirements.

BOAT TRAILER
The Offroad Angler trailer is built of 100mm x 50mm RHS steel, internally treated for rust prevention and then polyurethane coated and painted on the outside.

The trailer is designed to carry a 13ft (3.9m) alloy boat plus outboard. There is no need for an outboard motor rack, because the motor simply sits in the conventional position on the back of the boat.

The trailer has been thoroughly tested for offroad ruggedness. Adkins personally loaded some ballast on to the trailer and went bush to look for the toughest roads he could find.

Once the offroad ability was proven, Adkins added handy camper accessories including jerry can holders and storage lockers on either side of the trailer, two spare wheels to match the trailer and tow vehicle plus a large storage box right at the front.

CAMPER TRAILER
With the trailer built, the next stage was the camper. Made out of aluminium, it's been designed in an upside-down U-shape with a tent canopy on top, high enough so that it fits over the boat.

To get the camper off the boat trailer, it's a matter of simply unlatching the camper from the trailer, fitting angled legs to each corner and clamping a conventional jockey wheel to each leg.

When the jockey wheels are wound down, the camper lifts easily off the trailer and the trailer can be pulled away, leaving the freestanding camper. As in a conventional rear-fold camper trailer, the tent canvas hinges over to the rear, resulting in a bedroom above the camper and an awning-covered area to the rear.

On the nearside of the camper is a large locker that will contain an alloy kitchen bench with stainless-steel sink and cooktop. It also has the battery charger and AM/FM radio/CD player.

On the opposite side of the trailer, that locker will contain an 80ah deep cycle battery and gas cylinders. Dual 60l water tanks are fitted to both sides of the camper and they'll be emptied by a 12v water pump. The Angler camper is designed to be totally self-contained.

The design is open, and could benefit from canvas walls or screens around the rear canopy and a ladder to get to the bedroom area.

The camper can be removed completely from the trailer and left at home when you're just doing some day boating at your local fishing spot. The Swamp Donkey Offroad Angler has a pricetag of $30,000, plus on-road costs.

For more information contact Swamp Donkey Camper Trailers, 42 Annie St, Coopers Plains, Qld, 4108, tel (07) 3277 0359.