trailering in sand

so i am new to this forum and new to sailing, as this is also my first post i want to say hello. i have a older 16 and am making a trip to north padre island, here in texas. if you havnt been there it is like 70+ miles of beach. and only 5 miles is for 2 wheel drive, the rest of the 55-60+ miles is 4x4 only. it will be towed through about 30+miles of this....

http://images.encarta.msn.com/xrefmedia/sharemed/targets/images/pho/t001/T001944A.jpg

http://www.nature.org/wherewework/northamerica/states/texas/images/padre_10.jpg


i was curious to anyone taken a trailer through the sand. now i have a nice tow rig, and it is more than capable in the sand, but the small tires on the hobie trailer has me concerned. if anyone has any expirience in really soft sand, it will help me a lot. i mean i am going regardless and dont really care...if it was easy why do it right? but the added help is always a plus. i will try to add a pic of the tow vehicle and it might help out in the advice. the truck will drag the boat and you dont notice it back there. also i figured if the truck gets stuck i can always disconnect the hobie and walk it to wherever. thanks in advance.

pic in attachments

Looks like a great destination!

Sorry, I don`t have any firsthand experience trailering in sand. But, the H16 plus trailer is not very heavy and if the sand becomes a problem (I wouldn`t really expect it to be) than at least it won`t be a big, heavy problem.

Dave

Coincedently, the trailer I owned that came from Texas had golf cart style tires and wheels, nice and wide, speed rated tires for highway use. So wide that probably would handle sand well.

I've towed a jetski (350 lbs) in the sand but only short distances to launch it. It plows quite a bit with normal street tires. If it is hard or compacted sand you should be okay. I can't imagine 60 miles in deep, soft sand though. I guess if you had a big V8 with tow package (transmission cooler etc) you might be okay. I'd recommend bearing buddys on the trailer to keep salt water and spray out of the hubs. You might have to drive close to the water to stay on the hard pack. Oh yeah...and try to time your trip around low tide.

last year when some friends and i were in florida, we towed this boat a little ways through some VERY soft sand and as long as the car is pulling, i think your boat will follow. id also reccomend bringin a couple of boards and a shovel... just in case. but i think if you stay close to the water, as mentioned above, youd be ok.

My trailer has 8" tires that are about 6" wide and they work fine. Never really beeen in REAL deep sand at the dike though.

Doug

thanks for the info guys. the truck is got a suped up engine, it is not stock by any means and has 4.88:1 gears, has lockers front and rear, with super swampers. i have had it in sand before, but not real soft sand. the wheels on the trailer look stock, i think maybe 8 inchers. the 16 and trailer cant weigh much more than 500?lbs. i dont know. i have talked to a lot of people and they say it can get real soft at about the 18 mile marker, and all the way to around 42 miles, then it starts to get a little more packed. i am an avid offroader and have all the equiptment for recovery...i mean i work at an off road shop so... i was curious to see if anyone had problems with the trailer plowing and just acting like an anchor. i could always unhook the trailer if something happened i guess.

i am right now in the process of rebuilding the trailer, i was going to get the bearing buddies, i had them on my other trailer, for the moto bikes. anyone ever put bigger tires on the trailer? like maybe a truck tire. i had an old military trailer i used to take when we went to our land cruiser runs, it had 33 inchers on it, that way i had the same tires and i put a land cruiser axle under it, for the fact i could have spare parts if needed. i had taken this trailer through rock crawling before, but it used a pintle hook and it flipped over if you loaded it up with a lot of stuff.

i have been trying to find expedition trucks and trailers that have gone through deserts, but no one is saying problems of taking a trailer.

anyway thanks for the help, or if you have any other ideas, please dont hesitate, thanks again.

Seems to me that you should be able to change the hubs on the trailer to enable you to mount something on a 13" or so rim. Mods to the fenders should be within your capabilities.
For just a little more work you could change the suspension over from sprung to torflex. That gets you new spindles to work with.

I just got a brilliant idea!

As long as you're thinking custom modifications, could you do this: Have a second set of tires on the trailor, like a tandem set-up. But, (this is the cool part), the second set of tires are a light & wide tire that are a smaller diameter than the street tire. On the highway, only the street tire is contacting the road. But in the sand, the street tire sinks a bit and allows the smaller wide tires to float on the sand to prevent further sinking.

(Royality checks, please.)

Another dumb blonde question:
Would they be on the same axle or on a separate axle? Tandem implies two axles; but seems like both sets of wheels of different diamter could be on the same axle. No? The outside wheels sink and the inside wheels take over? Or vice versa?

I've driven in sand like that, we called it "ball bearing" sand because it was so hard to get traction in it. Never pulled a boat trailer. We always used big, soft tires (under inflated), or duals. My brother cobbled his together by welding two rims together, separated by short sections of angle-iron.

you mean like a helper wheel, like big rigs that carry a lot of weight have an extra axle that they lower. that seem feasable....but a bigger wheel seems easier. i will look into this torflex suspension. i thi8nk if i could get a 13-15 inch rim i can run a car tire, the hobie is light, a car tire would create enough flotaion i would think, if not i could run a 8 inch rim and that would definatly take care of it.

i have no fenders but would just fab something, like sheet metal or what not. also i am not worried about how tall this ends up making the trailer, as the truck already needs a big drop hitch. it looks funny if no trailer is on it.

thanks again for the ideas, i also thought about using a plastic type wheel i could just bolt on, like a small drum of some sorts, i have seen them that they ship soap in, i could rig a bolt circle for the trailer and throw that on.....i also thought about a four wheeler tire that was a sand tire, and putting that a a rim that would bolt up, i just didnt want o have to carry an extra set of tires and rims.

OK, so I'm NOT a trucker. I guess I should have said "duals". So yes, I meant to say one axel. (When it comes to inadvertently saying stupid things, I am an overachiever.)

what about getting some of those yellow plast type tires that are on the hobie cattrax and putting those on the axle as duals? or on a second axle that jaks down instead of the street tires?

O.K. I assume you talk about the stretch of beach from Padre Island National Seashore towards Port Mansfield Channel. I have driven portions of that beach with my VW Vanagon (not the Syncro kind). It is not that bad. What is a lot better is sailing! Either one side of that narrow island is nice for sailing. Wind is almost always good. Check out the Ruff Rider Race - they sail around the other part of the island - from South Padre to Port Mansfield Channel and back.

Patrick

Not a good idea. I've driven on that part of the sea shore and it is rough and very rutted. Go to Mustang Island. Port A is right there and the beaches are groomed and maintained by the city. And being that you are new to sailing its nice to have someone near by if things go terribly wrong. There is no one down there. I also saw alot of jelly fish on the Padre N.S.S. Have fun!!

the seclusion is half the reson for going there. i have located some flotation tires for the trailer, the truck is more than capable for the travel of the beach. and i will be going with quite a few other trucks, and i have a crap load of recovery gear winches etc. i have to lower the axle on the trailer, but more or less i am putting 31 inch floatation tires on it. i have been sailing for a little while here on the lakes, but never in the ocean, i am ready for more wind. i was looking into putting cattrax wheels on the trailer but it was cheaper to get my offroad buddies to donate sometires. these tires will keep a jeep up outta the sand so why not a 500lbs hobie and trailer. we will see, i am probably shooting myself in the foot, lol.

the other reason for going here besides the get away from everyone is the fact that my trucks only goes about 60 and this trip will take about 3-4 hours from my house, going to south padre is normally about 6 hours away, but in my truck it would take like 10, i was also going just to drive in the sand. if you havent seen the truck go to the first post, in the attachment, good fun stuff. pull the top off fold the windsheild down, take off the doors and go.

The only difference between a bad four wheel drive vehicle and a good four wheel drive vehicle is that the good one will get you in farther before getting stuck.

lol, that is true, i have since put some bigger tires on the trailer, should be okay, i hope. i will let ya'll know soon.

The air pressure makes more difference in terms of traction and tracking. I drop the pressure to 15 PSI on my Tahoe when in the sand and about 10 on my Jeep. The trailer tires would still worry me. Where we used to put in at the beach, we had a half mile drive thru sand to get to the acess. As long as we were moving, we we OK. But really deep soft sand is going to hang up the trailer. Bigger tires will help and I would drop the pressure some to increade the contact patch and spread out the load. Let us know how it works out.
BTW love the the FJ.

I'm not a big fundi on towing, but the little i've done involved diving boats and hobies. We have pretty soft sand on our beaches here, but with 4 wheel drive (not always needed), 0.8 bar pressure, mommentum and driving just of the high tide mark makes it pretty easy. When our guys get stuck, a little backwards for a run up, or a big loop to build up mommentum gets through most sand.
just a thought
Clint