for my summer vacation/adventure, i wanted to do some coastal cruising on my hobie 17. i have solved the problems of carrying gear, food and water, but i am having a time with what to do on any given beach between charleston and wilmington when i beach the boat for the night, how can i easily move the boat above the high tide mark by myself? other than dragging. do i have to carry the beach wheels? this past weekend i did a practice run and used some round logs i found on the beach. this worked ok but took time and didnt roll strait! has anybody tried anything else?

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.
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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