One of the exhibits that garnered a lot of interest and airtime at the Annapolis Sailboat show was not a boat at all, but a trailer.
Teardrop trailers were championed in the immediate post-war era as a means of getting out into the country and away from the town on the cheap. They were light and inexpensive and you could build one yourself. In fact, Popular Mechanics had several sets of plans and these proved extremely popular in the late forties and early fifties. As the economy boomed in the sixties, micro-trailers were left in the dust as campers turned to the likes of Winnebago and Airstream for something considerably larger and more luxurious. Recently, however, there has been a resurgence of interest in going small, the tiny house movement, at first thought of as a joke has gained a lot of traction in recent years as folks once again take a hard and fast look at their living expenses. This is particularly the case amongst younger generations, and this has led to the renewed interest in micro, or teardrop trailers.
The one on the CLC stand was made, like their boats, using the stitch and glue method of construction and was clear finished, so it was easy to see the puzzle joints to connect panels together before they were bent to shape. One word that seemed to be overused was 'cute' by almost everyone that inspected the trailer. Sitting atop an aluminum trailer the whole outfit was so light it could be towed behind just about any car. Replete with roof rack, which had a kayak strapped to it, the boats did not get much of a look-in but it was heartening to see one of the Eastport pram's adjacent to the trailer.
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