Beach Wheels .......... question ??????

Because we need to get enough surface area on the tires so they don't sink into soft sand. To get that surface area, they need big tires. They also need to be light so we can thrown them over our shoulders. These two factors drive what we have today.

The question you should probably be asking, is why don't we back our trailers in to the water to launch the boats?

No, No, No, do not go there!!!

Ian Farrier has designed a trailer for the new F 22 that is designed with carbon and rubber - not sure about the axle and rims, but there should very little stainless, aluminum, or galvanized in the construction. The F 22 supposedly features zero metal in its design & construction.

Fresh water launching and retrieval makes a huge difference, of course.

There are no

easy

answers...

Beach dollies: lots of work, but affords the freedom of not being dependent on a ramp, which in many places, means long lines and/or extra fees.

Ramp launching... Well, it's not easier unless there is no wind and the water is dead flat. Otherwise, it's tough to center the boat on the trailer, as the rear crossbar is significantly lower in the water, and your hulls will typically float over the top of any side rollers you may have. Even if you don't have side rollers, the hulls will easily slide off center as you pull the trailer out of the water.

Corrosion to the trailer due to salt water is another issue, but easily mitigated by a fresh water rinse (although, you can't reach everywhere that the salt water does when the trailer is sunk). One major problem is the tendency of hot bearings to shed their grease and injest cold water (easily mitigated with Bearing Buddies, which are not standard equipment).

Mike

I can understand the concept fully when we are talking pneumatic tyres and the need for ultra lightweight trolleys, obviously we have the problem where the 'floatation' is enhanced by the pneumatic tyres........

but what about the plastic barrel style ......

why are these sealed so that they too float ?
the only logical reason I can come up with is for assistance in structural strength of the lightweight plastic... otherwise I'm at a loss as to why.

So we 'need' a wheel that will move over sand, the pneumatic tyre and the plastic barrel both do this with the slight advantage going to the pneumatic tyre as it has some flex in the tyres sidewalls compared to the rigid plastic wheel.....
equals a slightly smoother ride for the boat
<img src="<>/smile.gif" alt="smile" title="smile" height="15" width="15" />

then the grey matter started grinding over.......

not wide enough, weight is unknown, and price wouldn't be all that friendly......
<img src="<>/eek.gif" alt="eek" title="eek" height="15" width="15" />

but great potential

<img src="<>/wink.gif" alt="wink" title="wink" height="15" width="15" />

I think sinking beach wheels would be much harder to use than what we have now. It would also add to the weight that has to be yanked out of the water. Getting a boat onto the wheels in the water can be a chore, but at least the wheels float and keep themselves under the boat. I can just imagine the scene at the dock after someone lost their wheels to the bottom in 5-6 feet of water on a cold day.

I wouldn't really wanting to be dipping my sail boxes full of gear into the water either.

Ideally, the wheels would be neutrally bouyant so the axle/cradles float right at the surface. I'm thinking a solid/non-pneumatic wheel like shown above and then flotation added to the axle. You definitley don't want the wheels to sink, you just want the axle to sit about six or ten inches lower in the water.

sm

Good idea. Either sinking or neutrally buoyant. If weigth is not sacrificed it would be a great product. Otherwise, i prefer to live with the pain of getting them in and out the hulls, it's not such a big deal really. I guess that the central handle can facilitate that a bit. Also it is probably a bigger problem for skeg hulls?(deeper)

I just push my cat out into slightly deeper water and slide the wheels under without any problem

I normally do mine in deeper water as well. In some situation we use 2-3 people per boat, so I can see the desire for a less buoyant wheel system. If going up and down a boat ramp is the norm, I would suggest the narrower wheelbarrow style wheels seen on A class dollies.

a heavier set of beach wheels would slow Jake down even more than the positively buoyant ones when he sails off with them still attached to the underside.

Maybe we should be developing retractable landing gear?

Richard Woods actually tried that once a while ago. He built wheels into one of his micro-multihull cabin cruisers.
I think it was too complicated to make and added too much weight / drag.
You could probably make an external bracket that attached to the front beam and allowed you to swing the wheels up above the water, but I'm not sure it would look too sexy...

I would give a lot for a good and workable design of such a gear.

When I was starting to build my own cat, I gave it a lot of thought, but never came up with something which could work in a bumpy sea and a striking brake.

I sail always single-handed and because I'm getting older, it becomes harder and harder to pull my cat without beachwheels alone in and out the water. And the limp and soft sandcondition on my spot makes that even worse.

So, any ideas?????????

Ronald,

How much does your Boat weigh? What size wheels are you currently using?

when we camp with our cats, often we will put a set of wheels on top of the front bows (a real pain w/ a spin bridal) and take the wheels to the islands with us. This allows us to pull our cats up on a beach overnight. They are a huge pita and i would never sail with them except for this reason. the windage is extremely noticeable, the weight effects the coe, and they look terrible.

If i needed to take them more than a few miles, i would probably try Hobie Gary's method (a few pvc tubes with boat fenders on them)

My cat, fully loaded, weighs between 140-150 kg. So its a big drag over the sand.

Ofcourse I have a bigwheel (21x12-8) trax with me. I even use that for the transport between my house and the beach (about 1 km).

The problem with singlehanded sailing that you miss a couple of hands keeping the cat at the floodline while you are storing or fetching the trax .

As I have explained some time ago, I cannot leave my cat unguarded too long on the beach.

hmmm.... design a Carbon Fiber, robotic

spider

that can walk under the trampoline, rise up and connect with the four inside corners of the beams (front and rear), lift the cat and walk it up the beach...

Or, motorized/waterproof beach wheels that you control with remote and can drive the boat up on the beach. All you'd have to do is balance...?

or teach some north sea seals how to crew / hold the cat for you / maybe even a few sea lions to

carry

the cat in and out of the water for you.

It seems to me that building a retractable system to bolt to the beams would not be all that difficult. They could include a linkage to turn them sideways as they are pulled up. The design in my head suffers greatly though when such a wide tire is required. It seems it would have to weigh at least 50lbs.

It may be worthwhile in a setting like yours with a frequent need for wheels in a hurry, or in a point to point race that requires transport over land in the middle.

How about a spring loaded cradle for the boat to sit on. You stand on the cradle to lower the boat and lock in location. When returning you step on the release and springs bring the cradle up under the boat. The whole cradle is mounted on beach wheels that can be towed by your trax. Just thinking.

Now that you mention it, a beach dolly using the new Polaris Airless Tires is build able and might work. They are probably designed for a heavier vehicle so they will be too stiff. You might be able to cut some of the supports out. I have seen some smaller ones (~12 inch?) overall diameter advertised for go karts that would handle about the right weight but I have not seen them actually for sale. I have been looking for a set to build a 4 wheeled Marstrom style dolly.

As for filling the tires with fluid, I saw that once. In the days before Slime, a guy reasoned filling the tires with anti freeze with stop leak would extend the life of his old beach tires. They were too heavy, they didn't roll, his girl friend was sitting on the tailgate with that look on her face and we were drinking beer and laughing.

My greatest problem is: where do I leave the wheels during sailing. They ought to be onboard for my purpose, but sailing at sea and in a break with these big things sideways extended is impossible.

The only place seems to be flat, in front upon the tramp, but then I have to have a mechanism that not only retracts them but also turns them 90 degrees.

deflate the tires for transport. Can you adapt them to those dual-stage hand pumps I see the kite-boarders use?

Nah, just fab landing gear that retracts into the hulls just behind the dagger board wells. Pop them out as you get to the beach, step off the boat and wheel it in.

You can send my royalty check whenever you are ready! 😉

just add foils, no need to retract

Or... sail it to the trailer.

Been turning this over in my head and can see all the issues you face with traditional gear....

Then I remembered seeing a pics of a hobie that had the beach wheels set into the hulls as a fixture, this was several years ago that I saw it and I have spent a couple of hours searching for those images again but with no luck....

From what I can recall, he cast a basic box into the bottom of the hull and then made a 2nd box that held the wheel and this box slid inside of the cast in box.... add a bit of silicone and it was installed and sealed.

the only images I could find are largely from aircraft wheel pants or wheel spats

but you get the idea.... <img src="<>/wink.gif" alt="wink" title="wink" height="15" width="15" />

I'm sure you could design a simple yet effective setup that would work well, I don't think that the exposed tyre would cause that much grief if it was set in to minimise water turbulence ......
it would also mean no more lost/stolen beach wheels or exotic Lamborghini style door hinge setup so you can fold the wheels up onto the deck and take up room etc etc etc etc .....

just thinking out-loud
<img src="<>/wink.gif" alt="wink" title="wink" height="15" width="15" />

Perhaps we are going about this wrong. Perhaps not a wheel but a set of tracks (like a bulldozer) of some kind that could either retrack into the hull or remove and store on the hull.

Put a pair of these on your front beam. <img src="<>/smile.gif" alt="smile" title="smile" height="15" width="15" />