coastal cruising beach wheels?

carry them just fore of the crossbar upside down on the decks.

There was quite a bit of discussion about carrying beach wheels on the boat in the thread elsewhere on the Open Forum, "Cape Horn - from Chile To Antartida in a beach cat" I found it by doing a "Search" using the phrase "beach wheels."

carry three or more pieces of PVC tubing and slide the boat on them, replacing one in the front with one from behind as you progress up the beach. Still slower than beach wheels but lighter and easier to carry forward of the cross beam (you could even turn them into some sort of storage area when on the boat).

I have a friend who uses PVC and it works great.

I've heard of people using PVC, but it still sounds a little rough on the bottom. Gary over on the beachcats Y! group has a deal that uses PVC pipe and boat bumpers. I don't remember the specifics, but the way I remember it, the boat rides on the bumpers, providing a soft ride.

I have several friends that use this on all sorts of sharp and round bottom boats like the Prindle 18, G-cats, and SuperCats. No adverse effects after years. It's so slick that you need to be carefull if running up on them with any kind of speed - you might launch yourself onto dry ground.

You should see the system that RTodd has down in beaufort. Its litterally a ramp made out of PVC that you launch off of RIGHT into the middle of a busy channel.

I haven't tried this yet, but on my 17 I ahve worn through the Gelcoat running up on the beach, and I wondered if I could run a line thru the middle of some boat fenders, and attach a snap shackle or some way to quickly clip the line around a wing frame or something. The idea being you carry two fenders with line on the boat, stop just short of the beach and jump off leaving one end of the line attached to the boat, push the fender under the hull in line with the front crossbar, and clip other end of the line to it's own other end, or the wing frame etc... you could then roll onto the beach if the line would work as an axle. Would it work? I'd like to know! Brian

What size pvc pipe?

I seem to remember that it was 2"

I use PVC pipe in lieu of beach wheels for my beachcats. They work very well and it doesn't seem to matter if they roll or not. I don't notice any real difference whether the pipe rolls along as the boat moves, or if they catch on a rock and the boat slides over the top of the pipe(s)

I've found it convenient to carry a 2" nested inside a 3" piece of PVC pipe, held in there by simply installing a PVC cap on each end of the 3". This way, I'm only having to deal with one pipe while sailing and then open it and I have easy access to the other piece of PVC.

My pipes are 9 footers and I lash them under the tramp right next to one of my hulls. They seem to ride there pretty well and are out of the way, don't catch water and are easy to get to when I want to use them to roll the boat up onto the beach.

The only alteration I'm thinking of making, is to glue or somehow affix a permenant strap to the pipe to aid in lashing the system to the underside of my tramp. In a pounding sea, I've noticed my system seems to creep aft, sliding through my existing lashing. I think affixing the lashing permenantly to the pipe would stop that.

Good luck.

Thouse,
This is the most well-thought-out idea I have heard yet for cruisers and campers who want to be able to pull up on remote beaches without hauling along a big set of beach wheels. Cheap, light, and out of the way, and easy to deploy. You could probably even store some extra granola bars in the tubes.

I think that the tubes are better suited for some cold ones...

Do they make insulated pvc? this is my major problem- i can't carry enough beer! of course i don't drink at the helm but after a day of sailing 6-8 go down easy. i quess i'll go to lowes's and buy (2)4" x 10' pipeS and try it out this weekend.

I built the kind that were in On The Wire E-zine. I used polyethylene 3" drain pipe since it is a lot lighter in weight than PVC is. I carry two or three pairs of these rollers when I cruise the Channel Islands National Park.
web page
I carry mine on the front of my trampoline, straped to the front cross bar.

GARY

Tom,

That is the black, strong, ABS that you use, right? Not the white, brittle, PVC.

Did you roll your Stiletto?

GARY

so this q-tip rolls well? doesn't bind up or roll crooked

H17windbtch,
Having to drink "bilge beer" is one of the downsides of cruising, whether on small boats or large. Cruising boats have a much bigger problem, because they have to carry a LOT more beer and have no way to keep it cold, so they store it in the bilge in an effort to keep it a little bit cooler than the air temperature topside. The best idea is to develop a taste for certain European beers that supposedly are designed to be drunk warm. That way if you don't like it, you can at least appear worldly and sophisticated.

I'M switching to liquor for this trip

i love the EUROTRAX advertisement at the top of the page. all this part and piecing together of nonrelated items (fenders, pvc, abs, bungee, beer) makes me laugh. it reminds me of that tv show JUNK WARS but with junk you have to buy! i saw on the boaters world page fenders for $10. so i quess 4 fenders, 2 lengths of pipe and bungee to make 2 q-tip (registered trade mark) rollers will be around $60.

windbtch,
We would all do well to avoid disparaging advertisers who support our communications infrastructure, even as we come up with more creative and economical ways to do things.

First of all, I am certain that the beach wheels offered by the sponsor are far superior in performance and ease of use than a Qtip style roller for the usual trailer to beach and beach to trailer use.

For coastal cruising, I use qtip style and they are a great thing to have along when you can't find a perfectly shaped log.

To answer the question about how well they stay aligned: The boat is rolling on a pair of inflated fenders. The fenders work well in maintaining floatation in wet sand, dry sand, and silt. The pipe in the middle is simply there to maintain the proper width spacing (via compression) and to give you a way to grab both rollers at once without having to pick up each of the two rollers. The bungie maintains the proper width via tension.

With good bungie tension, they work quite well and don't go askew very badly.

By the way, the Polyethylene 3" pipe runs about $3 / 10 feet.

GARY

At my sailing we have a pebble beach and we all use plastic rain guttering tied to the bottom of the hulls. The boats are then just dragged around. It works brilliantly on pebbles and wet sand, not so sure about deep dry sand, may get a bit bogged down.

Gareth

Hello All

I thought that a post from us at Playaboule may be of value considering our product the EuroTrax was brought up in this thread.

There seems to be some backlash about advertisers, their products which are considered overpriced and the need to find a cheaper alternative.

(1) Have you considered that it is our advertising that keeps "Free" forums like this and web sites like Catsailor alive.
(2) The company Playaboule is NOT "big business". We give back to the sport. We sponsored the recent Tybee 500 by giving away several sets of EuroTrax, some auctioned off to help defray costs for the event. We have paid for advertising in several Hobie division regatta handbooks, to help defray their costs for printing and postage. We have given away several sets of wheels to Cat teams etc. etc.
(3) The cost for this same set of wheels in Europe is $585-00. We sell them in the USA for $399 and have an offer right now with free shipping.

Of course a user can always kluge together a cheap solution from plastic pipe and so on. If damaged hulls, slipped disks, bruised egos etc but having the satisfaction of doing it yourself are important, then maybe the next step is to buy a sewing machine and make your own sails.

Our product breaks down too 2 4 foot lengths of aluminum tube, the wheels slide off and the cradles reposition in seconds. We even supply the allen key for the adjustment assembly. So if size is an issue for the coastal cruiser then we have that covered as well.

Regards
Bede Kortegast
Playaboule

P.S. Try going to your PVC pipe company or fender supplier to get them to sponsor your next regatta handbook. I wonder what their response will be??

try some fenders like the ones monohulls use......easy to use and soft on the hulls