![]() Very well looked after, restored and maintained. No deck delamination, NONE! Plenty of fiberglass material for beaching under hull apex. Good solid 1980's build craft (the ones you want) when they were built tough as nails & built to last. This is a sought after 1982 model boat that was built solid & tough, then refined & restored down to the very small details, has many go fast upgrades and is sail ready, even Regatta ready. I have seen postings on craigslist in the past year where people are trying to get rid of these as well.Excellent shape, Super tight, very well maintained, ready to sail, go fast Hobie Cat 16' Catamaran Sailboat with several performance upgrades, lots of spare parts, equipment and Extras. The drums were free for me and came from a bakery and were for propylene glycol, food grade. Most expensive parts for me were the U-bolts and the 2" steel pipe. The whole setup also fits nicely on the hobie trailer under the trampoline! Trickiest part is getting the boat balanced but once you figure that out it becomes pretty easy. The large surface area of the "wheels" floats the boat on top of loose sand. I have one set that I made 15 years ago and have used them 100's of times at the beaches here in North Carolina. I have since added some closed cell foam on top of the boards for cushioning. I drill an extra set of holes in the board and string some 3/8" line through the holes so I can secure the pontoons to the axle and the board. I use axle u-bolts (also from the hardware store) to attach the boards to the conduit at the spacing required to line up with the width of the pontoons. You then mount some 1"圆" boards to the outside of the barrels to provide a place to attach the pontoons to the wheels. I now have a long continuous "wheel" that fits nicely between the pontoons of either a Hobie 14 or H16. I thread the 2" diameter conduit through the holes that I have cut in the two barrels. I use a piece of galvanized electrical conduit (also from the hardware store) that extends about 2 feet wider than my catamaran. I take two of these drums and drill a 2" diameter hole using a hole saw from the hardware store into the top and bottom of each drum along the central axis of the drum. Typically they were used to ship bulk quantities of food grade substances like molasses, canola oil, olive oil, propylene glycol, glycerine, etc. It takes some calling around to locate the drums but you can usually get them for free. These are readily available from producers in the food and cosmetic industries. I have made a couple of sets of home-made cat tracks for myself and friends over the years using 2 plastic 55-gallon drums. Just to compare, the "real" CatTrax have tires that are 21 x 10. How much does a 10 foot 3/4 inch steel rod weigh? Maybe a design with four of these (inside and outside of each hull) with a 3/4 inch stainless or galvanized steel axle would work. These wheels are the same price but 15 inches tall and 6 inches wide. I've never seen a set that could handle real soft sand like on the Gulf Coast, but lots of people launch from concrete or hard dirt where lesser wheels can do the job. Lots of people have attempted home-made beach wheels and some "recipes" work for a specific purpose. The small diameter would mean you wouldn't have much ground clearance. They are only 14.5 inches tall and 3 inches wide, so you would need to be moving over a hard smooth surface.
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