Dear JF, My family of five lives near a beach in Maine where the Penobscot River meet Penohscot Bay. The conditions there are quite variable, from placid on a summer morning, through choppy in a standard southwesterly and outgoing tide, to downright boisterous in an autumn northwesterly. The tide runs hard a few times a day, making it a difficult place to moor a sizable boat, but an acceptable place for a small daysailer or rowboat. In fact, we've kept a 12' day-sailer there on a light mooring for a few seasons, and the boat has done fine. The problem is accessing that daysailer. We've been using one of Harry Bryan's fine and able Ladybug prams-a 7-footer with a sturdy tire built into the forward end of the bottom. That pram is essentially meant to carry one adult-the rower-to the moored boat, which is then brought in to the shore to collect the rest of the crew. In practice, we can fit a small passenger, too, but no more. And as our kids (ages 8,11, and 13) get bigger, we're running out of small passengers. We'd also like easy and safe boarding from beach to boat, perhaps via a passarelle, or gangway, that stows neatly and out of the way when not in use. The Lady-bug pram will always be useful for short-distance ferrying from, the beach, but we'd like more capacity and range.
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