![]() ![]() No plastic to deteriorate or weaken from exposure to the sun, or crack in freezing weather. Resulting in at least 4” greater tire footprint. Almost 10” wide, a full 2” wider than the competition. Anodized aluminum alloy rims for superior strength and durability. I borrowed this idea (thanks dog boy), I think it’s the best of both worlds.2 ply tubeless rubber construction. However, you then need to tie the Trax lines around shrouds or some other anchor point, (directly above the wheel), or else the wheels will want to roll back out from under the boat when you try to move it.Īs for cradles or rollers on the trailer, I cobbled rollers from cut up pieces of plastic sewer pipe with two pieces of 2 x 2 screwed onto it, so it fits over the roller, but held in place by the 2x2s You can lift one corner of the cat, drop the cradle onto the trailer roller,or remove it in order to easily slide the boat on and off. ![]() You can roll the boat right up into position, as the rubber on the Trax axle will grip on the bottom of the boat hull, & allow it to spin while you shove the boat forward. I don’t have cradles on the cat trax for the bigger boats and it makes it easy for a single person. The Skeg type hulls are very strong on the bottom and don’t require cradles,round bottom hulls can be more fragile. Using wheels, I can single-handedly move the Hobie or Nacra into out of the water,or around the lawn for maintenance. The round bottom hulls, like H18 can be slid around on sand/lawn, the skeg hulled Nacra/Dart are a b*tch, they tend to dig in. I will never sell them until I sell the cats. I now have two sets, one without cradles for the Nacra & H18 & a factory set for the Dart 15. I was going to build a set, as per one of the threads under technical, then picked up a used set of Cat Trax, the Gold standard of beach wheels. I too wrestled our Nacra 5.7 and 5.0 around with out wheels for several years, & I only had to move them from the back door to the water. (i do it almost every time i sail with my 6.0) When you get "good" you can really balance your boat and solo it up the beach īack to your first question - YES - get wheels - go new if you can - old ones will leak air much faster and then u need to find a new atv tire and shop ![]() If you are really cool, you pony up ($$$) and get pivoting double roller$ to distribute load. What most of us do around here is : cradles in front (furthest from back of the trailer) and rollers in back. Having cradles are great for many reasons: distribute the load, prevent catastrophic failure due to some beach kid from jumping on your trampoline when you aren't looking, heavy loads can destroy a cat on rollers, stop the boat from sliding around on the road, etc) but they don't make it any easier getting the boat on the trailer and require another new skillset (how to land the hulls into the cradles without scratching the hulls), and they can easily collect sand (that is tricky to get out since there is usually a boat blocking your access to clean) and this sand can be rub your bottom (not as fun as it sounds) rubber ones are very cheap, nice poly one's aren't that much more - get new and hardware axles too) Nothing easier than pushing a 400+ lbs boat off a trailer (or back on) than 4 (newish) rollers. (I did drag my wife down the hallway of a Ritz Carlton once, but um I digress.)Īs most things on boats - everything has pros and cons Doesn't sound like it would be too bad but then I've never tried to drag 380 pounds down the beach before. So will I need wheels to slide this boat from waters edge to the water or am I worrying about nothing? Info I can find online states the boat itself only weighs 380 pounds. I am a good sized guy at 6'3" and 240lbs. try to launch various types of watercraft in the surf only to get stuck in a foot and a half of salt water with their 50k vehicle! So my thought is to drop the boat at water's edge (very hard packed sand) and slide into the surf from there. The beach is fairly flat so actually launching from the trailer would be hazardous to the vehicle as I have seen many a truck, jeep etc. In Texas its legal to drive on the beach so I can literally pull the boat on its trailer down by the water's edge. Ok so I will have my Prindle 18 this summer at a Texas Beach. ![]()
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