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....







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

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.

Thanks guys for presenting these visualised ideas.

Kingy, the problem with retractable wheels is the size which I momentary use. They are too large, especially for my Prindle like hull shape. ( I would choose for more reasons another hullshape now if I could do it again !)


Mike, I could make room for the retracted wheels behind my frontbeam by making a hole in my tramp (it's a net). But it's an interfering solution!


I will play further with all these ideas in my head, thanks again.