Boat rollers and empty trailers

[David]

I was wondering if anyone has had experience with a couple of scenarios. I am planning a 3 week trip in my BR20 in August, Mackay to Townsville island hopping. It is very tidal up there and with shallow sloping beaches it can be several hundred metres out. Most of the time I will just let the boat dry out but there are a couple of spots where I was planning on pulling the boat out just past the high tide mark in case the weather turns. I am buying a couple of 350Kg blow up rollers and although I am traveling solo I am hoping I can pull the boat out using the main sheet block and tackle; I only need to go just past high tide. Has anyone tried this before.

The other question I have is has anyone driven a long distance with an empty trailer. To avoid beating back against the trade winds I am going to drive the car and trailer to the end point and catch a bus back. I am interested in knowing if the empty trailer bounces too much and whether you need to load it up with water containers or something similar that can be disposed of.

Regards
David Whyte
Little Ripple
Lake Macquarie

[Jeremy]

I have no experience with the boat rollers, but I have towed various empty boat trailers, sometimes for fairly long distances, the longest trip being about 400 miles down from Scotland with an empty single axle galvanised steel break-back trailer for a 1 ton, 20ft LOA sailing boat, plus a trip of about 200 miles with a very light empty alloy trailer over Swallow boats to pick up my Winsome hull.

It's perfectly OK towing empty trailers, but they do bounce about a bit and can be a bit noisy on rough surfaces.  Keeping the speed down helps, but generally the noise and bouncing doesn't seem harmful, it's really just a bit of a nuisance more than anything else.  I found I had to stay at around 40mph with the very light trailer, any faster and it really did bounce a bit if it hit a bump, but the heavier braked trailer for the yacht was fine right up to the legal speed limit.

Jeremy

[David]

I have used boat rollers to pull my Wanderer up a beach with the main sheet. But not my BayRaider I think it would be Interesting to try.

David

Crofter

[Julian Swindell]

I used to pull my old Drascombe Dabber up over a stony beach using two large fenders as rollers. It was surprisingly easy. Quicker with two people, but doable on my own. Not sure how it would be with a heavier boat. The hardest bit was getting the boat onto the roller in the first place, but after that it was just a shove and a bit of roller shuffling.

[Steve Joyce]

sounds interesting.  to see the sea around Morecambe Bay at low tide you have to resort to a satellite view.

Think I'll stick to the lakes where the tide doesn't matter.