Blue Heron
Member
Since my Sunfish launch sites often involve short portages across sand, dirt and rocks I decided to build myself a Beach Dolly. Here is what I came up with:
It started life as a used wide-tired hand truck from the flea market ($30).... as shown in picture one. I simply hacked off the handle, and base plate. Then I welded on a couple of crossbars (scrap metal I already had). Finally, I added a set of foam kayak blocks (~30) and a few straps. The whole thing took me about 2 hours to build, and cost about $60.
It works like a charm! I used it all week.... and it makes life a LOT easier. With it's wide tires, it moves across sandy beaches quite well. The only thing I'm going to change is to add some more padding to the ends of the crossbars to insure that they don't gouge me boat.
So.... if you are thinking about building a dolly, here is another idea / design.
It started life as a used wide-tired hand truck from the flea market ($30).... as shown in picture one. I simply hacked off the handle, and base plate. Then I welded on a couple of crossbars (scrap metal I already had). Finally, I added a set of foam kayak blocks (~30) and a few straps. The whole thing took me about 2 hours to build, and cost about $60.
It works like a charm! I used it all week.... and it makes life a LOT easier. With it's wide tires, it moves across sandy beaches quite well. The only thing I'm going to change is to add some more padding to the ends of the crossbars to insure that they don't gouge me boat.
So.... if you are thinking about building a dolly, here is another idea / design.
