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Beach Launch Trailer


Johnny Response

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Has anyone ever seen a good set-up, design or plans to build a Beach Launch Trailer. Basically a marine railway but on 4 tires instead of on rails. My lake has such drastic water level variations, a boat lift or railway is not really feasible. I'd like to build the rig / trailer and have it set up to winch into a shelter or boat house.

Any info on the topic would be appriciated.

thanks, . . . Johnny

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My grandpa had one for his jetski, We just put together a winch, and then a simple frame with two bunks with cross sectional supports. For tires we used those huge balloon-like beach-ballish things and it worked well (pretty rocky where we launched it as well. Since you have a response and not a huge wakeboat it should be fairly easy to construct because of reduced size and weight.

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Question I have - I see you winching it back in ... but how are you going to get it out to the deep ... push it out or am I missing something here ... wouldn't be the first or last time I was in the dark.

Get an old trailer and put wide dune buggy tires on it and rig it with a dune buggy tire by the tongue. These tires will help with floatation and floatation would help pushing it, but sinking in the lake bottom would be a lot of resistance even in sand ... is the bottom rocky?

Edited by MalibuNation
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there used to be a site that had this cool vehicle that was basically a trailer with an engine on it. had massive balloon tires. it was called the beach hauler or beach launcher, so something like that. the demo showed the guy driving down the beach, turning the trailer into the water, unloading the boat, and getting back out of the water. i looked into it for my setup, but it was pretty expensive, and no way the locals would have allowed it. but it was pretty cool. i did a quick search, but don't see anything on it.

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If you have a tractor or similar to pull it in and out, you might want to find a hay wagon frame and put bunks on it. It's a 4 wheel tube frame usually with large implement tires and a telescoping hitch. The front wheels steer so if you've not been around a farm it might take some getting used to backing it up, but it may work great....

Peter

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Or, depending on what you use to pull it in or out, you could use an ATV or even a really powerful lawn mower depending on what type of surface you are launching on.

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Are you guys all farmers? I mean the ideas you guys have are pretty damn smart. Thanks for the comments.

Anyway I think this will definately have to be a home made, rubber wheel set-up, maybe using a farm wagon (something like Smoothwater suggested) modified with bunks and a winch above the high water mark. The slope of the beach is enough to get the boat/trailer into the water on it's own.

I'll spark up the welder this winter, fab it up and post some pictures, see what you think.

thanks again, . . . Johnny

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Honestly get a trailer with really big tires, and use a riding lawnmower to push/pull it. We have a 20hp john deere riding mower at work that is used to move a Eurocopter BK117 in and out of a hanger. If the lawn mower can move a full size twin turbine engine helicopter it should be able to move a boat. Install a winch at the boat house to assist with pulling it out as a back up. shouldn't be that hard to do.

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For some reason I thought the OP had a long ways to go before he could drive the boat off the trailer has he was in shallow water for a long ways. Maybe get a trailer (like the like Pete suggest) with a swivel tongue on the front and one on the back, one to tow it in and the other to tow it to the deep with a jet ski.

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