Launching across soft sand ?

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electrosys

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I'd like to pull a launch trolley + dinghy across 250 yds or so of very soft sand, without getting a hernia in the process. Has anyone got any clever ideas about the best way of doing this ?

I've identified some wheels called 'wheeleez' which claim to be able to carry loads over soft sand, but at £50 to £80 each, they ain't exactly cheap. Apparently their secret is in being balloon tyres, inflated to around 2 psi - so I was wondering if wheel-barrow wheels/tyres at low pressure might also work ?
 
go to your nearest agricultural quad bike dealer, and buy a couple of used quad tyres from him. Used, because you don't need any tread - and they will be cheap -even free :).

They 'float' on top of sand and stones. Worth getting a tube, though.

Wheels can be welded to a plain bearing across the frame.

Typical dealer website:-
http://www.dwg-quads.co.uk/tyres.htm
 
I remember in my youth ex army surplus mini caterpiller tracks off searchlights were used for exactly your circumstance.They were interchangeable with a standard wheel and would allow a GP14 to be pulled up the dunes at Llanbedrog with ease.

I seem to remember that someone made a modern plastic equivalent that would fit a standard boat trolley but cant find it yet.
 
You need to make your wheels wider, buy a second pair of wheels like the ones you have & extend your axle to accomodate them, or get a strip of the heavy plastic used for the doors that fork lift trucks drive thro in factories & figure out a way of wrapping that around the wheels & joining it somehow (copper wire stitching?)

Drag the trailer & the dinghy thro the soft sand seperately & put them back together when you reach the hard sand.
 
Some good ideas there, thanks.

The situation is I can get onto the car park ok, and from there it's something like 200-250 yards of soft sand via a cutting through the dunes to the highwater mark. The sand is constantly churned up by day-trippers and from a tractor which is used to recover beach-launched fishing boats.

I've just remembered that I've got a pair of 15" (OD) wheels, 6" wide on an old ride-on mower - so they might be worth playing with. But yes - old quad bike tyres - they sound perfect. I have thought about some kind of mini track-laying system - but I think it would be too complex and prone to failure if not build well. Think I'll stick to wide soft wheels.
 
Letting the air out of any tyre will cause it to spread the weight over a larger area and be less likely to sink into soft sand. Then you just pump them up again afterwards.
I've rescued a trailer from soft sand a couple of times by doing this and it's a common trick used by 4x4 drivers.
 
the problem with deflating the tyre is that you then have to put a lot of extra work into deforming the carcass as you pull the trailer along.
 
I had the wider wheels on my Mirror launch trolley, not the ones like wheel barrow wheels, the ones with flat tyres on.

I had the same problem you have. I got some poly prop pipe and cut 2x8" lengths off it. I then wedged one pipe section over each wheel with bits of wood. The resultant wheel was 8" wide and about 2" greater diameter than the standard wheel, it rode over soft sand much better, I still had to stop for rests though.
 
We used to launch our dinghy off a beach, so I know what hard work it is.:(
There were a couple of guys launching Hobie Cats in the same place. They used big squidgy balloon tyres and it was half the effort to move a boat that was twice the weight.

The secondhand quad tyre idea appeals to my meaner streak.
 
Years ago we bought a trailer for our mirror. The trailer had large plastic wheels, a bit like fat fenders or the things on ball barrows. Super on sand and gravel. It also more or less floated.
 
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