Solution
Just get this one.
The Dynamic Dolly PART #:14113 with the large wheels. There does still not seem to be a distributor in Australia (while you can get it in NZ). But Dynamic is shipping them if you ask them – and it just solves the problem.
The long story…
In Port Melbourne, we sail off a beach. It’s soft sand – about 200m of it that you need to conquer if you have to go the long way. Often I sail by myself – and no one else is around (to help pushing & pulling).
The RS supplied dolly, even with the bigger wheels is heavy. It’s very robust, but it feels like it’s nearly the weight of the boat. I struggle dragging the trailer alone over those 200m. And that is with the big wheels on the axle adaptors!
When we first got the boat, this was a harder challenge than we expected.
- Baloon Wheels
Let’s just get some balloon wheels and everything will be good – after all others are pulling their 180kg Jollyboats on those, single handedly and with ease over the sand.
If only the axle would allow that.
Diameters don’t match, adaptors are a nightmare – there’s no out of the box solution.
2. Baloon Wheels & New Axle (lazy version)
We got the balloon wheels – there’s a hollow cross bar at the bottom of the dolly, that should be easy to just run a new axle through that!
If only you could find an axle that’s not flexing at the right length and diameter… and if there were not the two bolts that go into that bar in the center.
3. The Beachwheels Trailer
With balloon wheels! That looked like it might be the solution. It’s rated to over 220kg (enough for a fully rigged RS Quest), dimensions are perfect, and the caster wheel, well with that one could push the boat across the sand with a single finger!
We had the boat on it for 1 minutes – there was not even time to take picture. It didn’t break, but was so instable we didn’t dare keeping it on for longer. It is great for motorboats though.
4. Baloon Wheels & New Axle (the engineer’s version)
Welding on new axles (which was the immediate suggestion on day 1 by the older folks at the club) – we did not dare to try that (sounded too hard).
5. Dynamic Dolly
Researching the web – a few RS Suppliers internationally recommended / sold the Dynamic Dolly with the boats. Unfortunately there isn’t a supplier in Australia (at least it wasn’t at the time). We reached out to the NZ supplier and they were happy with it the dolly and recommended it. We reached out to the US Manufacturer and they were very confident our search was over.
“Our Dynamic RS Quest Dolly with Large Wheels is exactly what you described. Very Durable even in bigger sea conditions while still remaining light weight and and mobile in all sand conditions. We can ship to Australia, and have periodically. It is somewhat expensive.”
They couldn’t provide a video or some other evidence for that at the time (and maybe we will post one at some stage) – but we took the plunge, and it delivers. Now in its 4th year, we are extremely happy with it. A single person can pull the boat over soft sand (it’s still a struggle sometimes, especially if kids built castles and dug holes on the way), recover the boat even in waves and drag it up the beach again as well – just as described by Dynamic.
Over the years, we learend that with an onshore wind, leaving the boat half-rigged and going on a run on the trailer makes it really easy to get back on land – even if no one is around.
We took some detailed photos of parts of the original RS Dolly at the time, which we will post below, in case anyone else would ever be interested…
Below are more detailed photos of the original RS Quest Dolly (2020) in case anyone would ever look for some technical detail.
