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Does anyone use skates to protect their hulls and skegs whilst winching their boat.
I am sailing at Bexhill where there is a steep soft shigle slope and my trolley wheels tend to drag and dig in (going down as well as up). I have noticed that some of the Dart 16s use plastic drainage pipes and guttering strapped onto the underside of the hulls and get pushed down and dragged up without trolleys.
Yes Brighton Sailing Club do the same using the thin light guttering that you can bend up to follow the bow shape - but I think it is restricted to the polythene / polypropylene hulled boats.
I did talk it over with some of the Brighton crowd who came to Seasalter for a sailing/camping weekend with us after I saw their boats on Brighton beach with 'skids' attached.
The one concern we had is that if you get some pebbles in the pipe it could cause point pressure and skeg cracking - maybe use some closed cell foam in the guttering so the hull sits into it.
I did try double trolley wheels for our 18 for a season at Seasalter but found that pebbles got in between and it was no easier - just built up a wider walls of stones in front of the wheels.
We sail from Thorpe Bay to Whitstable fairly often and need to protect our skegs from the flinty Whitstable beach. Steve should be familiar with the problem there!
We carry 2 x 6 ft lengths of plastic gutter across the front beam just behind the mast and tie them down to the toestraps.
To set them up, drill holes in each top corner ie 4 per gutter. Put the boat on them so that they extend just beyond the skegs, then tie fixed lines from the front of each gutter over the front hulls and round the bridle wires chainplates. (Thus the gutters won't move back when the boat is dragged up the beach)
Tie a 2 ft length of elasticated line to each of the four rear holes. These are tied over the rear hulls aft of the rear beam.
We stop in 2 ft of water, preferably tie on to a buoy, drop the sail, put on the gutters and the boats slide up the beach like sledges. I use the righting line to pull on and a little upward pressure helps to stop stones getting in. Also just check the boat is sitting correctly on the gutters as it grounds.
It is very simple and I can get my boat up Whitstable beach easily on my own. For a very few pounds, it is worth a try for you.
