Potential boat trailing problems and disasters are not restricted to the time spent on the road between your driveway and the top of the slip. If anything, once you leave the tarmac and concrete, for a whole host of reasons, they can get considerably worse. And unless you’ve experienced some of these at first hand, it can be difficult to appreciate just how such a seemingly innocent stretch of shoreline can hold so many traps. This is particularly true when open beach launching. Learning how to escape from some of these traps is something you most definitely don’t want to be doing on the hoof. Anticipation, though not always possible, and preparation, which is both possible and advisable, are key. You won’t ever avoid or escape them all. But it is possible to steer yourself clear of at least some.

Having the means to escape and knowing how to use it cannot be over-stated. Also, knowing how to read any warning signs that might be available in order to dodge some of the scrapes we can all so easily get into is invaluable. This is never more true than when going onto a beach entirely on your own. Even having other 4WD vehicles present to help may not save you as they could get into the same situation as you if they try to assist. Tractors, and in particular four wheel drive tractors, are the best way to launch from an open sandy shore. Yet even these are not infallible. One of the clubs on my patch lost three two wheel drive tractors in a single event recently. The first went down in a soft hole, quickly followed by the standby tractor sent out to help it. Finally a third tractor rushed out to see what it could do suffered the same fate. On an incoming tide it's a race against time when you get stuck. And remember, if you drown your own vehicle on the beach it's entirely your loss as insurance usually only covers it for use on a public road.

But that only happens to other people doesn't it. After years of open beach launching, and with several winters fishing the Mersey under my belt, I thought I had the New Brighton beach situation thoroughly sussed. Dave and I trail there with my car where we meet up with Charlie Pitchers who has a 4WD truck. The small tides mainly see us launching at low water and fishing the flood. With Charlie on the beach putting his boat in, Dave and I usually launch with the car, then get retrieved later with the 4WD towards the top of the tide. One particular morning we arrived before Charlie and decided to put the boat in, then do some push netting for shrimps while we waited. That's when sods law kicked in. The only time we've launched without the 4WD in support and the car wheels went down. With sea water lapping under the car it would have been easy to panic and make matters worse. The trailer was un-hitched, sand was dug out from around the driving wheels, and with Dave pushing at the back we eventually got the car moving. We then pulled the trailer free using a long rope. But lesson learned, we won't be doing that again. And just to rub salt in the wound, we also mis-timed coming in to find water lapping under the car wheels again where I'd parked the car at the bottom of the slip. It shows how easily complacency can catch any of us out.

It is advisable that any piece of beach that is going to be used for dinghy launching should first be walked. If it’s a stretch of shoreline you fish regularly, then this need not happen every trip. Aim to take a good look on a big spring tide at low water, and repeat the operation periodically, particularly after a bout of winter gales which can very quickly alter the characteristics of what was a familiar piece of shoreline beyond recognition. Equally, it’s no bad thing to walk ahead of the towing vehicle on any trip if you are the first person on the beach. If you are not, note earlier users routes, in particular looking for areas of soft wheel grabbing sand denoted by increased tyre track depth, and wet soft sinking patches which are usually low spots where the tyre tracks having become lost. Areas of soft dryish sand usually stand higher than the surrounding topography and have firm sand around their periphery. Patches of rock may also have firm sand adjacent to them too. Checking out the beach at low tide will also help pin point obstacles that could result in collision damage coming ashore when the water on the beach is just covering them. Try to relate these to obvious landmarks. Shingle banks, navigable gullies, the position of sewer pipes, and in particular groynes for high water landings are also worthy of note.

When coming in onto the beach, it’s a good idea to climb out of the boat in chest waders and walk the last yards ahead of the bow feeling for submerged boulders and soft boggy holes. Unfortunately, boggy holes tend to make their presence more obviously known after the tide has fully uncovered them, by which time it could be too late. We dropped onto a bad one once at Cleveleys. The sand felt quite firm and clean when we beached. By the time the tractor and trailer had arrived, the tide had backed off leaving us to winch on dry, which normally isn’t a problem. Except this time the trailer wheels sank to the point where the axle was sitting on top of the sand. So great was the suction that one tractor on its own made no impression all. A second tractor was brought, and still the wheels stayed put. Eventually we pushed the boat as far off the trailer as we could get it. That did the trick, but at a cost. The tractors must have been pulling at a slight angle, which freed one wheel before the other. This snatched the trailer out from under the boat at a slight angle, ripping the rollers on one side of the cradle free of their axles. Imagine trying to sort that one out on you own with a 4WD, or worst still a car and nobody else to help.

In the days when we did all our own launching with a Landrover, we would have had all the right kit ready in the back of the van. For total self- sufficiency, you have to. A couple of shovels would have been available, as would lengths of rough timber board to dig in under the wheels. The same boards can double up to park the van on at the waters edge if there is a need to stop for any reason, particularly on a beach prone to wheel sinking. Landrovers are probably still the best off road 4WD, though you can’t always rely on any 4WD to climb itself out of a hole when the wheels go down. On some occasions you may have to help dig these wheels out too. The moment the wheels start spinning they are digging themselves in. Your immediate response should be to stop them going around. It could well be that while the soft sand would on its own not be too much for the 4WD, with the weight of the boat and the drag of the trailer wheels, the combination often is. When this happens there are two things you can do. The first is to reverse the outfit and try taking a different line. If the new line is as bad as the old one, option two is to reverse the van wheels out of the holes, unhitch the trailer, then drive the 4WD to an area of firm ground, rope the trailer up, and attempt to drag it onto the firmer stuff.

We carry 50 metres of 2500 kg breaking strain rope for just this purpose. Use your anchor rope if you must, but be aware that it may not be strong enough. This is where a spare wheel carrier acting as a third wheel can also aid the rescue. A standard jockey wheel simply isn't big enough. Without a large diameter wide wheel the front end of the trailer is going to plough through the sand making progress difficult, if not impossible. It will help if you get everyone you can muster pushing the boat as well, and you will need to use a special knot if the towing rope is to be freed later without resorting to a knife. Using a loop tied in one end of the rope, attach it to something suitable at the front end of the trailer such as the tow hitch. The other end of the rope is taken around the tow ball of the 4WD and a single hitch knot is tied about a yard from the ball. This is repeated several times at intervals of around a yard each, and the end of the rope is held and pulled tight to avoid the series of simple knots slipping when the towing clear begins. Done properly, the knot should not collapse and tighten, but will fall apart in seconds when the boat has been towed clear onto firm ground and the end of the rope is released. With no tight knots to untie or cut, the rope can be stowed away for next time.

One of the worst areas for trailer wheels bogging in is at the waters edge at low tide and just as the flood gets underway. And it doesn’t take much in the way of suction on the trailer tyres to encourage the towing vehicle wheels to start to dig in too as we found out at New Brighton. This is where wooden boards come is useful again. If there is a likelihood of the 4WD digging in, put it on the boards before attempting to pull the trailer. If you reverse into the water either with the trailer on from the onset, or to re-connect after winching on, then putting boards under the 4WD wheels is nigh on impossible. As mentioned earlier, if you have your spare wheel carrier fitted to act as a third operational wheel and the jockey wheel is raised right up, rope the trailer up as before and drag it clear of the soft stuff at the edge. Another very useful roping trick is to attach the rope between either the bow post or winching eye of the boat, and to the tow ball as previously described, and literally drag it boat over the sand until its well clear of the waters edge. Then slip the trailer underneath the bow and winch it on. If you get far enough away from the wettest sand the wheels shouldn’t go down. But unless you have some kind of keel protection, the abrasive action of the sand will eventually wear the gel coat away.

One of the major reasons why vehicles towing boats end up getting stuck en route to or from the waters edge is not selecting the right gear for the job at hand. When the going gets really tough such as when ploughing through soft dry sand on the top of a raised bank, the worst thing you can do is loose any momentum. If forward momentum is lost, even for the split second it takes to change down to the gear you should have selected in the first place, life is going to get more difficult. A two-wheel drive vehicle such as a car probably won’t move again. Sometimes even tractors and 4WD vehicles start to dig themselves in. When this happens, as mentioned in the previous paragraph, try and separate the towing vehicle from the trailer, drive it to firm ground, and rope the trailer up. Similar situations frequently occur at the base of concrete slips where soft dry sand accumulates. Steep shingle banks along the upper shore also have the ability to stop you dead in your tracks. In all these instances, anticipation is the key. Before coming into contact with the softer stuff, stop where the ground is still firm and select a lower gear you know will take you through. It doesn’t matter that your speed is reduced. Remember the tortoise and the hare. Getting to the finishing line is all that matters.

One last point I would like to make is that the most direct route from the base of the slip to the waters edge isn’t always going to be the fastest, particularly if there are traps waiting to be sprung along the way that are going to impede your progress. Be prepared to detour around the edges of soft banks and soft gullies staying on the firmer stuff. This is one of the reasons why I am only too happy to let others launch before me. Watch how they fare on the beach before deciding on your route. Or as mentioned earlier, look at the selection of routes those who are already out have taken and follow the best set of tyre tracks you can find.

SEE THE VIDEO VAULT – Dinghy trailing