Launching with Beach Wheels

[Alangaq]

I am curious to know how many of you guys launch your 4+ meter SIB’s solo with beach wheels and how you go about doing it… do you launch with or without the motor on the transom? Rocky beaches like the one shown in these pictures or sandy beaches? How do you remove the beach wheels from the transom once you have launched into the water.

As you can see from the pictures, I elected to just launch with the trailer and ATV yesterday, however my trailer is rather tall and requires me to get way out into the water if the shore slope is gradual as it was here.

I am fairly confident that if I had a couple of guys with me that we could man-handle it into the water with the beach wheels, but normally I only have the wife and little ones along and it would be more than they could handle, or that I would ask of them. In the next couple of weeks I plan on launching from a different beach that is very tidal and composed of rather fine grained sand. I am worried about the beach wheels sinking down into the sand and basically rendering the SIB immobile….

Thanks in advance for your comments and suggestions.

[Alangaq]

On a different note…. Once on the water we had a very nice day trip and the family was able to enjoy the sceanary and calm seas. Did not venture far enough out for Halibut or Rockfish, but did get into a couple of schools of Herring and Tom-Cod so the kids had a great time fishing.

[prairie tuber]

I'll be interested in seeing the different ideas on this as well. There was a recent thread on here about a very slick beach cart/highway trailer combo where the sib sat on a beach cart which in turn sat on a highway trailer. I'm wanting to design a collapsible cart that can be folded into a compact enough package that it can be easily transported on the boat then be used for portages. I currently have a pair of these tires http://www.casterland.com/webstore/p...d=3119&sub=255 mounted on some very sturdy plastic rims that will be used for this.

I'm sure that if you had a set of floatation tires of this size or wider on your ATV trailer, it would not likely bog down in sandy bottoms.

Also 'Rogan' has a nice beach cart setup that uses 3 pairs of flotation tires. I'll see if I have an image of it in my picture bank.

[prairie tuber]

Not Rogan's but a couple of other interesting images:

[prairie tuber]

Found it!

[Peter_C]

^those are the same wheels I used when I built mine. Wheeleez 19" are the only ones with a 265 lb capacity. Getting them up is easy, just turn the boat so they clear the outboard and gas it. Back down is a whole other issue. I can do it solo but I rigged a 1/2" rope thru a pulley system.

I consider myself a fairly strong person and could get the boat into the water by myself but not sure I could pull it back up a beach even after running the bilge pump, removing the electronics tower, anchor, fuel tank, and other gear. It is still around 400lbs over rough terrain.

Instead I would lower your bunks so they just clear and build a trailer tongue extension. Mine is somewhere around 12' and let's the tow vehicle stay out of the surge.

[kelson]

I beach launch a lot with my Futura. It rides on the trailer. No way i could haul it out by hand over the rocks and sand that we encounter. Also, I launch a lot into estuaries. They are shallow at the shoreline and no tongue extension or lowering the bunk rails would make it possible to get the boat on and off without letting the trailer go farther out. So I carry this large caster tire on my trailer. When we beach launch I unbolt it and put it under the trailer tongue. It keeps the hitch assembly from dragging or digging in when the boat is hauled out. I use a long tow strap to pull the boat and trailer out. An added benefit is that I can often place the truck farther up onshore and get good traction rather than tossing rocks out from under my 4 wheel truck as i try to climb the shoreline. The trailer can roll out a lot farther and I almost always can get get the bunks deep enough for a good launch (I have a 50 ft tow strap).

Always roll out the trailer with the tow strap attached! I failed to do this and it rolled in, the boat floated free and the trailer kept going right into the deeper water of the estuaries channel. Had to free dive for it and attach a line to haul it out. Won't do that again.

The trailer tongue caster wheel has come in really handy at some nasty, slippery and steep launch ramps too. I drop the trailer with caster down, pull up farther and use the tow strap so I have good traction. Maybe not for everyone, but a fully loaded Mk2 futura with a 40 hp 3 cylinder outboard wants to live on it's trailer unless it is a really flat beach! Just one more option to consider.