Right now the only ready made brig available is a good one from Steel, Chapman & Hutchinson Ltd. However some might want a smaller lighter brig. So if you do please speak up now and state your specs: LOD, displacement, etc. and perhaps a builder will spring up!
Until that happens you will have to design and build your own UNLESS there is a vessel currently in production that can be easily converted to a brig. Perhaps Mary J. Ward will meet your needs. Maybe another schooner hull from a current manufacturer can be easily converted to a brig? Lets us know of your suggestions and specs and we will see what develops.

I though you were volunteering George - you're such a tease.

What size would a Sophie / Speedy have to be?

Hmm, what was she 100' on deck? At 1:24 (SC&H models are 1:24) that's 50"

Pride of Baltimore was 90' and I'm building her at 1:20 scale making her 54"

1:20-1:24 is a good scale for vessels that size made to sail in open water. 1:35-1:48 puts them in the 3-4 foot hull size which is good for more protected water. Larger scales get into major transport and launching issues until they're big enough to get in - and then the Coast Guard gets involved.

Making a hull is easy. I could crank out nearly any bare hull in a day or two of dedicated work. Turning that into a quality model is where the time comes in.

I have a weight limit on my back of say 25 pounds. Perhaps the hull would weigh 25 pounds and the sailing keel another 25 pounds. That way I could lift each piece from the car onto a cart and "dump" the boat into the pond. Getting it out would be the problem. The idea would be to lift out the hull (without the keel) and then lift out the keel. Thus the maximum weight I would have to lift would be 25 pounds! So another question is how big a hull could I get that did not weigh more than 25 pounds?

I have a three ft long tug that weighs in at 36lbs. I'm totally guessing you might be looking at 42" max L on deck.

All kinds of cart options can make launch/retrieval easier if a good launching ramp is available.

George, you might think about approaching the hull size from the other direction: what's the biggest square-rigger you can fit in your existing car, noting horizontal and vertical distance? A 42" hull might have a 22" bowsprit, needing a 64" space in your vehicle. And the bigger the scale, the taller the masts; my 24" hull Aldebaran's masts just clear the ceiling of my CRV. Any longer hull (larger scale), and I'd have to arrange for folding masts or removable topmasts. Based on the slaver Dos Amigos, the Aldebaran's rig is more lofty than a simple trading brig's, of course.

I for my part would like to stay in the 1/32 scale, well, let's say from 1/30 to 1/35, as our boats over here are all to that scale and there is not so much room in a station wagon. Masts can not be permanent, either, not enough headroom in the car.

i think brooks has a point, the most practicable size would be around 1:48 scale. easy to transport, relatively cheap to build and equip and should sail well at that size (as brooks and mine show).

"Plug-in" masts and bowsprit should be considered.

Don (Beneteau on this site) re-rigged an SC&H brig hull as a topsail schooner. He uses plug-in masts with quick setup/breakdown rigging. It sails beautifully and would fit across the back seat of almost any car.

Anyway, I hope he sees this and posts some info on what he did. You could easily have something in the 42" hull range to keep the weight of separate keel and hull parts under your max weight, and with the breakdown it would fit in almost any vehicle you have.

Here's a pic of Don's boat - he sails circles around us square-riggers...

Fore-and-aft-rigs are easier to dismantle, too.
From my experience anything less than 2 feet hull length is really difficult to fit out with controls. A squarerigger this small might suffer from a very cramped hull?

Taran, Meatbomber has lead the way with proving what's possible with small squarerigger hulls (and micro RC scale planes, too). The two foot hull of my Aldebaran is cramped, to be sure. However, it seems with my boats that I can fill up the hull with gear, no matter what size :-).

Marine Modelling International Feb 2011 has an article with photos of Mark Steele's contest for the smallest sailboat at page 46 . George Surgent entered a 2 masted schooner 3 inches LOD, but that was huge compaired to several other entries.

This has a great discussion of a whole lot of fullsized ships and the thoughts that went into their design. And the photos and lines plans will give you lots of ideas for many different in-the-water models.

I have transported the S,C&H brig three times. It is too heavy for me now thus I could try the schooner as the hull and keel each weigh "only" 20 pounds. Thus if I could seperate the keel from the hull at the edge of the pond I would only have to lift 20 pounds two times. But that is an expensive boat??!!