What kind of boat do you have? I only say "the bottom for that matter" in regards to fibreglass bottoms wearing down over time.
Obviously if you have a beach break then doing anything but ridding up the beach would be impossible.
if its blowing onshore i personally travel in as slow as possible and pop the windward rudder up when a couple of boat lengths away then when 4-5 foot deep turn it and point into the wind stopping the boat. then crossing over and popping leeward rudder up while my crew jumps off and hold the boat steady.
i use beach rollers and put underneath and push backwards.
My boats at no time touch the sand.. scratches=slow
Tarzan wrote:
Got it. Relatively speaking, the boat is going reasonably slow when I hit the beach. I was hoping that if I was going straight forward at the time that I actually hit the beach that the gradually sloping sand would just lift the rudders with no damage done.
It says in the manual that if the wind is blowing onshore, like it is most of the time here, to turn the boat into the wind at the very last second and drift backwards towards the beach. I am pretty new to this but do you do that when you are surfing waves towards the beach? If the wind is blowing parallel to the shore, then it would be a little easier to turn upwind just before hitting the beach, but I would sill be turning broadside to the waves.
When you say "the bottom for that matter", do you mean the bottoms of the hulls? I thought that plastic was more resilient than that, but I guess over time the abrasive nature of the sand can wear anything out.