Hobie Cat Forums

The other day, I tried to land on a beach with 20 km/hr wind behind me. The width of beach that I can land on is less than 40m , with some dinghies, surfboards and swimmers everywhere, plus some rocks under water. I can easily do it with a monohull, because I can point the bow windward and drop the main. That is not an option with a hobie. Knowing that it is too risky, I gave up landing on the beach.
Is there someway I can do lee shore landing under such conditions?

1. Ride the boat up the beach, it's designed to do that, just don't make it a habit if you don't want to pay for bottom glass jobs.

2. Hobies point into the wind just fine. Maybe not as quickly as monohulls of the same size, but 40m is plenty of room.

Don't sail directly downwind to the beach - approach at a broad reach.

When you get about 100 feet from shore, let both sheets and the main traveller go to scrub off speed.

Turn up into the wind directly to windward of the beach. As soon as you're close to head to wind, raise the rudders all the way.

Immediately hop off and control the boat by the bow. Don't try to control it by the side or the stern - it will get away from you.

Back the boat into the beach.

This is really easy to do with two people - the crew hops off and controls the boat while the skipper gets the rudders up. Then the skipper hops off and helps pull the boat up on the beach or runs and gets the Cat Trax while the crew holds the boat in the water by the bow.

Here is what I do when I am single handling my Hobie 16 in that situation.About 200 yds upwind of my narrow beach I drop my main (little tricky but can be done),then I come in with my jib loose or trimmed hard to depower (remember you are going downwind).Bleed off some speed with my rudders.Then I just jump off the bow before I hit the beach.I know it is a little unorthadoxed but it works for me on my narrow beach that gets deep in a hurry. I also have a big dock on one side and a rocky point on the other side that prohibits me from broad reaching in.

I agree, you need to become comfortable with just blowing the sails and rounding up. Slowly drift in backwards if necessary. Going straight to the bow is key. This basically puts the boat in neutral. There is no need to worry about getting the sails down until you're on shore.

When you come into the beach on a broad reach or a run and drive the boat straight up onto the beach, you have very minimal control of direction and speed, especially after the rudders kick up. This makes for a particularly dangerous situation at a small crowded beach in any breeze over about 5mph. You basically have no escape route if something bad happens.

The only time you should drive the boat straight up onto the beach is when you're coming in through breaking waves (ocean sailing). In those conditions, rounding up will put you broadside to the waves placing you you at high risk of capsizing.

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I have on my HC 18 rolfock so jib can I roll out easy - lees sails=slower. But anyway I everytime in safe deep of water pull daggerboards up, unlock rudders and when I am so close to beach I turn cat windward, jump to water and hold cat manually! Then I load cat on cart and pull it on beach. Not so bequem, not dry, not so fast, but very friendly to hulls!

Thanks for the info. Actually, I am more worried about running into somebody long before I get to the beach. I have to negotiate around a whole bunch of dinghies and sailboards for 50 m before I get to the beach. I need to slow down the boat so I won't run into any boats/kayaks etc parked right by the water.

Thanks for the info. I think I might have to practice dropping the main out in the water. With so many eyes watching, it would be embarrassing to miss the target after I dropped the main though.

Well, that's a whole different problem. Most people aren't accustomed to a boat landing on a beach, especially children who seem to go out of their way to get in your way. You'll need to de-power the sails along with a lot of hollering at anyone in the way - don't be shy in making your intentions known. It helps to have someone on the beach clear a landing spot, then head-to-wind just before landing, jump off, and push/pull the boat ashore stern first.

All my advice is conditional on there not being waves to sail through.

Personnaly, I use Matt's (MBounds) proceedure. I sail in the Pacific and have almost a constant onshore. I use to land by sailing on a broad reach dumping the sails as the rudders touched bottom and spin the boat toward head-to wind. The leeward bow would run partially up on the beach.

At my first regatta, there were lots of Tigers there. Upon watching them land, I would notice that they would land just like me, except they would spin their boats around completely to head-to-wind in slightly deeper water, just as Matt described, preventing their hulls from ever touching the beach at a high rate of speed. They all did it with such ease.

Well, one bottom job later for me, I adopted their method of landing completely and it has become quite the norm. Got my bottom job two years ago and it still looks good.

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Happy Sailing,

David

I havent tried this with my hobie 16 but years ago I used to sail a prindle 18 in the VI and we used to roll up the jib, turn into wind, pull up the rudders, sheet in the main into the middle ie traveller tight too and then both of us would go forward one on each hull and the boat would glide backwards straight downwind landing facing straight into the wind on to the soft sand. With the main tight and rudders up the boat will have no choice but to go straight downwind. If you have the jib up I would make sure its sheeted out. If you're going to try it best go out to sea a bit and see what happens

Cool. I'll try this next time I am out.

Another suggestion if your worried about people being in the way, is carry a small air horn onboard with you. You can get them pretty cheap from West Marine and carry it in a small tramp bag. When you approach the beach, you can de-power the boat and then get peoples attention with the air horn making your intention of coming ashore known...

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2011 H16... Have a Hobie Day!
1983 H14 Turbo...

Sound like an accident waiting to happen. Find a different beach. I know that is not what you want to hear, but hitting one person or even one boat will not only ruin your day, it makes all cat sailors look bad and can close a place to sailing. If there is no othe launch site, try a different location all together.