Originally Posted by Undecided
In the US, most of the distance races you have to start on the beach and you have to finish on the beach. Often times two or more boats will finish neck and neck with each other and requiring a beach dolly to land would simply not be safely possible in some of the surf here.

As for modern racing cats not taking kindly to being run up on the sand at full speed... Just last month we had a carbon 20, f18's, a marstrom 20 and a bunch of older nacre 20's running up the beach.. Seemed to fare just fine.


Ehhhh...I say it could be done gently unless you've got gigantic surf. Rudders up, boards up, main sheeted in tight and centered (jib loose). Sit on the bows and back the boat in through the surf. It works and is a really mild way to get the boat on the beach safely. It's certainly not the fast way to hit the beach - but it would be pretty easy to beach a boat like that with control.

There's also usually some angle to the breeze on the beach. With the finish line in knee deep water, I did a Tybee without making any significant sliding on the sand (right after I refinished the entire boat). My bottoms finished looking like they did when we started...granted, that's not the fun way to land on the beach (like the first landing Mosley and I had where we sailed all the way up to the dune between two parked boats) - but it's possible.


Jake Kohl