The beach i pull my catamaran up on has a ton of golf ball size rocks and when i pull the boat up i cant stand knowing what those are doing to the bottom of the boat. I dont fully pull the boat up on the beach, only the front half just so i can throw the sail on and get ready. Does anyone have a solution to this. I know a lot of people use cattrax but this seems pointless because im not pulling the boat fully out of the water. Thanks
Strips of carpet for the hulls or a series of PVC tubes laid out perpendicular to the hulls will work well (tie them together with rope so they'll roll up). Caution with the PVC though; it's very slippery to the hulls and it probably won't stay put on the PVC.
you can try to make your own, or improvise with pvc pipes.. may even work... but nothing will solve your problem as well as a real set of beach wheels and cradles.
Cattrax are made to take a boat off the trailor... and easly moved around until ready to get wet... (i.e. so u can throw the sail on and get ready)
if cattrax were pointless, most serious sailors wouldn't throw out $500 a set
When I stored my boat at a lake in upstate NY before I moved to Florida, I used 2X12s approx 20 feet long and put indoor outdoor carpet on them and also screwed 2X4s on the edge so the boat would not slide off the side. Added a few 2X4 spacers to keep the width proper and last put a roller on the end of each 2X12 that was at the waters edge to make it easy to pull up on the carpeted area. It took about 2 hours to construct, but what a relief.
I use noodles with shock cord through the middle (hook on one end, loop on the other) strapped to which ever end of the boat is on the beach. These are big noodles (4
or so in diameter) not the regular sized pool noodles. Another options I've used when I had to improvise is throwable boat cushions with a bungie hooked to the straps. You should be able to improvise something with shock cord and some kind of hunk of foam that is portable and does what you need. One advantage of noodles is that you can stuff them in your hulls via the deck ports and take them with you so they don't get
borrowed" and they are with the boat when you land.
Put the beach rollers under the boat in the water then roll it out of the water like an amphibian. Partially filling tyre tubes with water makes the beach rollers float at the right height to slide the cat on. With a set of bow cradles the boat will never touch the beach.
Darryn
small boat fenders work great. I used them at Catalina Island quite a bit.
If you just need to get a few feet up the beach, don't drag the boat up, pick it up and set it down on the beach. This is what I do whenever I just need to get the bows (or sterns) on the beach enough to keep the boat from blowing away. I do this all the time when I'm alone on my H17, I come in from sailing, and I need to leave the boat to go get my cat wheels. I just need the boat up enough so it doesn't blow away.
Stand between the hulls facing forward, right in front of the front crossbar, one hand on the dolphin striker post, one hand on the X-bar, lift up walk a few steps forward, then set the boat down. Way easier on the hulls than dragging.
If you're on a rocky beach, putting down some padding is probably a good idea.
sm
This is what I used to do in my younger days....
Walk away from the boat and have your girlfriend/wife ask 4-6 guys that walk by to help pick up and carry her boat...
Works like a charm.
Walk away from the boat and have your girlfriend/wife ask 4-6 guys that walk by to help pick up and carry her boat...
Works like a charm.
Winner, winner, chicken dinner!
I agree with the girlfriend/wife walkaway bit; so cool! I can already see it working:
...Now I should be able to put this big thing on the trailer and back up there by myself...
Ah but it really depends on how small your wifes bikini is and how well she fits it ? <img src="<>/wink.gif" alt="wink" title="wink" height="15" width="15" />