The city of Riviera Beach closed the Catamaran Launching Ramp. Short of joining a Yacht club there is only one place left in Northern Palm Beach County to launch a Catamaran excluding concrete ramps. The place is Jupiter Beach just north of the Jupiter Reef Club. Nice place and a few cats are left on the beach. The city is in the process to limiting how many boats can be left on the beach and residency issues. There is a cut into the curb so you can back down of off A1A on the top of the dune. The boats go down the dune easily on set of beach wheels.

The problem is that a 400 lb boat on Cat Trax up a 15 plus foot dune is a lot of work. I like to single handle and it is almost impossible to get the boat back up by myself. It usually takes four people to get the boat back up the dune to the trailer.

I am in the process of developing a motorized set of beach wheels that I will call Dune Dog. Dune Dog in the front resembles the standard type of beach wheels using knobby ATV tires that bolt to a custom made hub. There is center tube and a rear wheel for steering. The boat will sit on the Dune Dog and the press of a button will run an electric motor to drive the Dune Dog. The Dune Dog will disassemble to three pieces so it can be carried on your trailer or hulls as other beach wheels. The prototype will be complete by the end of next month. I hope to make modification to carry any type of light boat.

Anybody interested in this project can Email me at mikeshappell@sprynet.com

Cool, but A Bigger question for us all: Why did the city close the catamaran ramp? This loss of access problem is a deadly serious issue. I can remember being ordered off the beach by rent-a-cops from front of Miami Beach hotels in the 60s...maybe that's when it started. Can you or we do anything about loss of access and beach closure? Without action, it will soon be too late.

Dave,

Please forgive my ignorance, but what are the laws regarding beach access in the US? The laws are Federal or State? Or are they just regulations? How can someone have the right to restrict access to a beach? Just by owing beachfront property?

After so many summers spent almost entirely on the beach, the concept of a "restricted beach access" seems so anti-democratic... In most or all South American countries the beaches are Federal or Navy property, and it is ilegal to restrict access. And this law IS enforced.

Maybe a similar legislation could also work in the US? Anyway, it is an idea worth fighting for.

Luiz

I'm not an expert on this, but my understanding is that along oceans, the public only has unfettered access to the area of property exposed below the mean high water line, i.e., when the tide is out (federal law). And I believe that along inland lakes and rivers, the property owner owns to the water line, period. If the water level goes down they gain land, and if the water level rises, they lose land. I hope somebody more expert will correct me on this if I am wrong.

And I won't get into the issue of riparian rights, because that is way too complicated.

I have contacted Palm Beach County Commissioner Warren Newell about the issue. Commissioner Warren Newell discovered the State Dept of Transportation closed the access. I contacted the State Dept of Transportation and they did not know why, transferred me around, and did not return my call. I called State Representative Jeff Atwater’s office and spoke at an aid. They found out that State Dept. of Transportation closed the access at the request of the city of Riviera Beach because it was deemed unsafe. Keep in mind that there has been access there for over 25 years. There is a plan for major construction and Peanut Island and it may be the staging area for the material, just a guess. Now it is the staging area for garbage trucks hauling the garbage left behind on Peanut Island by the power boaters.The State Department of Transpertation contacted me later and told me that they did not but up the gate. There you go three levels of government and not the same story.

You have an excellent start on pointed questions. Please continue. Effective contact with local officials, State officials, and DOT officials then becomes a wider effort perhaps aided by a forum such as this. Newspaper contributions aid in contacting the public. Perhaps even the powerboaters could be persuaded that others are negatively affected by their non-public spirited trash disposal (non) methods. If no cooperation, you could threated to get their power-boating privileges reduced because of injured manatee sightings. Schedule a big event then make a big stink that you had to cancel it.
(Wait, I don't mean it- that's talking like a lawyer). Anyway keep up the good work. Tell us how we can help.

Last night I actually got a call from a marina owner on Lake Santa Fe where many beach cats used to play years ago. HE WANTS US BACK! I felt the very earth tremble.

They've got a ramp, but you may have to be a member/member's guest to use it. It's a concrete ramp that puts you down to the sand shore. You have to sail out the inlet for ocean, but it's fine to scoot south of Peanut Island in the intracoastal. There's a few Raves stored there, too...

I don't know about the details of the site but the enviro-wackos will have a sh*t fit with anything that resembles an ATV on a dune. I sorta have the same problem around here with access. I believe access is closed because you get the 'once a year' sailor with a bad boat out there blowin' 20knts and then something happens. The officials think they have to prohibit catamarans for your personal protection or something. And then you have the boats that are left on the dune for months or a year at a time (actually contributing and becoming one with the dune) that the residents who pay big $ to live there think is a nuisance (and it is)

Not a ATV think of a set of beach wheels with a center tube and a back wheel. Like a cat trax and a half with a 12 volt car type battery and a starter motor driving a set of sprockets.

It would be great to use a ATV but only the cops get to drive those on the beach.

You wouldn't be able to put it in the water, would you, to load the boat on it? We sure could have used something like a Dune Dog at Rick's Place -- it was tough rolling a boat up our hill from the beach, even though it was only about a 10-foot rise in about a 100-foot horizontal distance.

Something I whipped up in a couple minutes on PAINT.

[color:"red"]Aluminum bars clamp to Cat-Trax axle and have a hole for a pivot bolt where they join [/color]
[color:"blue"]Power Frame. Holds the drive-tire, the [/color] [color:"green"]battery[/color], [color:"blue"] and the [/color] [color:"yellow"] electric motor (most likely a car starter-motor. [/color]
[color:"blue"]The light-blue bars are the handle-bars that the person can use to steer with. They way they are mounted also gives the person a solid place to push from to help this contraption along (especially if the battery or motor dies). [/color]
[color:"purple"]Battery cables. One grounds to the [/color] [color:"blue"]Power Frame[/color] [color:"purple"] while the other goes to a relay mounted on the [/color] [color:"blue"]Handle Bars[/color] [color:"purple"] The relay has two small wires that run to a small switch on the end of the [/color] [color:"blue"]Handle Bars[/color] [color:"purple"] and one large wire (activated by the relay) that powers the [/color] [color:"yellow"] electric motor. [/color]



I think I made that about as clear as mud, but how does this compare with what you're designing for 'Dune Dog'?

Using the biggest drive tire possible will get you the most contact patch and the fastest speed. A car starter motor will have plenty of power to spin the tire.

Mary,
I have stayed with you and Rick before. You do have a good size hill to get up to the grassy area. Not sure about waterproof. I have to work out the motor and gearing then build a waterproff box with seals.

My thought it to attach a small 12 volt wench with a slig to Dune Dog to pull the boats up on the frame. I am still working on the prototype frame and motor. I will keep you posted.

Thanks,

Mike Shappell

Good idea but Dune Dog is engineered from scratch front Wheel Drive. I do not want to claim any connection to Cattrax ect... for legal reasons. The current Trax available Euro and Cat have free spinning wheels.

Do you run the rental on the beach there in Bradenton Beach? I have sailed my G-Cat from Bradonton Beach a few years back.

The idea I posted above would simply clamp to a pair of Cat Trax. It would be more like an acessory.

My friend Ralf Cole runs Bradenton Beach Boat Rentals. Two tornados in one week played havok amongst his little fleet of G-Cats and he's in the process of putting them back together and getting the hulls painted with white Imron. I keep my G-Cat a few miles north of his place, but still right on the beach. I've been having toughts of putting a 5HP engine on a tricyle with floatation tires to run around on the beach for fun and pull my boat and some skimboarders.
(But I could get in a lot of trouble for doing that )