beaching a fibreglass boat.

[fishingdms]

Hi guys,

I have a fibreglass boat, if I beach it at say Peel Island (horseshoe bay) on the sand will beaching a fibreglass boat cause any damage? ie visual or chips etc? I have a haines hunter

sorry for the silly question, but I always worry about the boat touching the bottom and making the once nice boat into a scratched hull nightmare.?


cheers.

[Noelm]

depends on how you beach it I suppose, and how long it is there, if there are any rocks etc, a lot of things can happen but usually don't, it may dull the gell coat a tad, but, if it is done carefully no real dramas should arise.

[wessel]

It takes just one stone to press in the wrong place and you will have a cracked hull.
The sand will act like a pot scourer on your paintwork below the water line.

Fiberglass can take a lot of pressure over a large area, but is useless at handling pointed loads on small areas. I used to beach my boat until that one day that a stone did some damage.

Not a good idea in my opinion, but you can get away with it as long as you walk the area where you want to bring the boat ashore and check for rocks.

Wessel

[Roughasguts]

Yeah sand will scratch and dull the gel coat, and if theres a rock even worse.

But you could do more damage just driving your boat on the trailer and missing a roller.

Have you considered a keel guard, just sticks on to the keel of your boat for added protection.

Think 3M make one.

[griz066]

Yup will scratch it alright but remembet this is also the thickest and heaviest part of the boat and it can take a fair pounding. 8-)

[tiny_tinny]

Years back I did a course at TAFE, involving (among other things) basic fibreglass repair. Before we started, the teacher asked us who had aluminium boats. About half the class put their hands up. He got one of the tinny owners to bash a hole in a small fibreglass dinghy so he could show us how to repair it. To cut the story short, after about ten goes, with a club hammer held in both hands and swinging as hard as he could, the bloke finally managed to punch a hole in the 'glass boat.

Moral of the story - fibreglass is way stronger than most people think. It's easy to scratch the gel coat, but damn hard to punch a hole in it. That said, be careful where you beach the boat, watch out for rocks and you should be pretty safe. I had a 'glass boat for many years, beached it probably a couple of hundred times and the hull was still sound when I sold it.

Mike

[ahoj]

Yeahhh if you wory about scratching it---- rivet or screw a allu of stainless steel wear plate. You can get it folded to the shape and sicaflex will take the acces space out .

Ahoj

[blaze]

beached my 20 footer on a couple of shallow reefs a time or two, thats what you get when you fish to hard into the rocks and not watch what you are doing. Happened when the small swell dropped away, lift motor and wait for the next to lift you. Both times I have only had a couple of small gelcoat repairs to do (must fix the last ones, not done yet). The beach wont be a problem, its all good as long as there is nothing under the sand. The other thing I do when I beach mine is to rock the boat a bit so it sits down into the sand and sits as upright as possible so all the weight is on the keel line
cheers
blaze

[bin_lookin]

if you really have to beach it for some reason get an old 13 inch tyre and put under front takes up no room at all

[Cheech]

Agree with the comments and have no probs nosing the sand with mine when returning to the ramp, but if going to peel, I would probably anchour in the shallows and wade ashore unless you were very careful with the tides as a dropping tide you could be caught high and dry pretty quickly.

[mcgilld]

the abrasion factor depends on conditions - if the boat bounces or moves around whilst beaching or floating then obviously sand will do it's work. In light conditions you're pretty safe.
In saying that - if you have a new boat and want to keep it as clean as you can then I wouldn't advise it.
If she's an older hull it's not much to worry about .
It's pretty common up here off Mackay in the 6m+ tides to beach on reef flat in the sand to make island camping possible and avoid having to anchor outside the fringing reefs