Cinnickster

afishyfish, the xtrail is a all wheel drive, can be locked into 4wd mode. not much grunt but apparently rated to tow 2tonne and has been okay so far. and sure do appreciate the exp of all here, long time browser first time poster so thanks for all the info!

thanks for the tips all, the fold down spare wheel looks v useful, is there an attachment i can buy to make one of my own? Having a spare wheel seems like a good idea in any case.an electric winch is probably out of budget for me at the moment, i've been told a good one with all the wiring is about a grand. Probably look at a anchor winch first cos i'd get more use out of it so for the moment I'll struggle on manually winching the boat on the trailer.

Thanks Ale, I've tried that way with some success (as in noone breaking anything), the biggest problem seems getting the nose down - two of my friends were pulling on the hitch but couldn't get it down until the boat was pretty much fully on the trailer so i was winching uphill the whole time! i need stronger friends thanks for the tip re angling the car to the boat

New to boat fishing down aldinga way since recently picking up a second hand 5m quinny coupla months ago. lots of “fun” trying to launch/retrieve off the beach – most of my friends are newbies to boat fishing and I’ve never beach launched b4 so its been a big learning curve! Broken winch strap, bruised arms from the winch handle banging me, boat turned 90degrees to the beach, its been great! the retrieval seems to give me the most grief.Have researched a bit on beach launching on the forums with the rope technique seeming to b the safest to prevent car sinking, but I was wondering if it was worth trying leaving the trailer on the car, investing in those TREDS/maxtrax things esp on the retrieve, placing them under the back car wheels so they don’t sink. Does anyone do this? are they worth it? any other tips? should the back car wheels be in the water or is that too far? btw I have an xtrail. cheersnick