Mary, this has long be proven to be a non-issue. We have been doing it for years now, without any significant mishap.

Of course as a sailor you must know how to traverse a big surf. No boat fancies its chances after being capsized in the surf with big breakers, not even a Hobie 16.

We really need to get over the myth that lightweight equals fragile, because it really isn't a 1+1 = 2 relationship. Not even on the beach.

I hate to say it but both my 105 kg F16 and a 150 kg Nacra 500 were blown over on the beach. The Nacra 500 snapped its mast, mine didn't. Now I guess the Nacra 500 was just unlucky, maybe his boat made some kind of freak turn that put more shock to its mast, I don't know. Point is that you just can't glance over the specs of a design and make any dependable guess about which is more fragile.

The only way to tell is to look at the way a boat is build and good the quality control was at the factory.

I dare say that the F16's have an excellent rep. sheet there. No F16 has ever been killed in the surf and not for lack of trying. See picture.

This is a Stealth F16 that ditched its crew in a big breaker and then proceeded to the next breaker and capsized. It then floated back to be picked up by the dazed crew.