Pulling trailer out of water on beach?

[dajoco]

Hi all,
This is my first post so please dont flame me as its probably a silly question lol.

I have an old 16ft fletcher arrowsport speedboat, its basicly just a cheep toy for taking the kids out fishing, my problem is that I only have a family car (Vauxhall Vectra) with a tow bar to pull the boat in and out the water. This is fine if I drive to a harbour with a concrette slip, but where I live you have to drive down the beach and I cant see my car gripping on the sand when trying to pull the boat out the water. It will tow on the sand no problem, but not pull the boat out the water!

My question is this - Would a winch attached to the tow bar pull the trailer with boat out the water? as once its out onto the beach I can get hitched and off I go. Just not sure If this would work or what size winch I would need?

Any suggestions or alternative methods?

Cheers
Dave

 

[dingdongs]

best thing is float it on and off the trailer and not on a rising tide and wait for tide to abate.OR get a 4x4 or pay a tenner and go to your local mariner as the damage to your car once sunk will cost a lot more.

 

[oGaryo]

how about attaching a rope to the trailer and to then to the car to get the car away from the water sodden sand and also allow the opportunity to have those who've been in the boat play tug of war i.e. small boat so a combination of car plus man power pulling on the rope may do it.. could even attach a few loops to the main rope to act as handles to aid pulling.

or, do as you suggest and buy a 12v electric winch attached to the car with the rope attached to the winch... plenty on fleabay

 

[Quest]

Dave,

this may not be quite what you want to hear but here goes anyway. I am better than Mr Average with a car and trailer as I tow a lot for work. Although my boat is bigger than yours, it sounds like I am also better equipped with a robust 4x4 truck. I have launched and recovered more than a hundred times over the last 3 or 4 yrs or so, but only once from the beach! I will never do it again! I can't help feeling you are lining yourself up for a possible disaster, with so much that could go wrong and not really having the best equipment to cope in that situation - soft sand, level beach with no gradient means trailer a long way out to get the boat on or off, compounded by a relatively high trailer bed, fast incoming tide, jockey wheel biting rather than rolling and getting stuck...so much to go wrong on you and not necessarily your fault. For what it is worth, my advice would be don't do it, stick to slipways.

Sorry if this sounds unduly negative, but having been there, I wouldn't go back!

Andrew

 

[AndieMac]

Beach launching is potentially quite risky, as has been already said, and realistically 4x4 territory.

Make sure any moving/surging sea-water is kept well away from the drive wheel/s, in fact any where near the car.

One way that is popular in this country is to make up an extendable drawbar out of a length (5 metres?, the length of your trailer) of box section steel with a coupling and ball on the respective ends, and a jockey wheel with a large and wide pnuematic tyre. The drawbar extension can slide along and attach to the trailer frame when not in use, to and from the water.

When the trailer is loaded and sitting submerged, angle the vehicle slightly away so the initial pull on the load (twisting action) and subsequent traction loss of the drive tyre is minimised by dragging one wheel out at at time.

The trailer tyres will start to sink in the sand as soon as they are stationary and water moves/surges around them
If the beach is really shallow and flat and the trailer needs to go out far to load, use a rope to drag the rig in close enough to attach the extension bar.

 

[landlockedpirate]

I have been trailer boating since I was a kid, but beach launch and recovery scares the pants off me.

A 12 volt winch may be a solution, but odds on you are going to get your car wetter than you wanted.

This has been on before, but well worth a watch.

http://youtu.be/3goRfcrj1WA

If I was beach launching regularly I would want an old 4x4 or a tractor

 

[AndieMac]

To get maximum traction on sand for any vehicle, 4x4 or otherwise, you will get a serious advantage by lowering the tyre pressure to 15 psi.

If you still bog down, lower it to 12 psi to get yourself out, but at this level you need to drive fairly sedately to minimise the risk of the rim spinning inside the tyre.
Always carry a cheap 12v tyre inflator (and gauge) to raise the trye pressure up once off the beach.

 

[AndieMac]

This has been on before, but well worth a watch.

http://youtu.be/3goRfcrj1WA

That's painful to watch!