What type tyre is preferable for the beach. Slicks or ribbed tyres, vary in front and rear? And why?

Either or
I have used both Knobblies are not great though

not much difference on sand except ribbed roll better than blocked type treads,I think ribbed have the slight edge,since they grip a little better and prevent sideways drifting. The guys who regularly race on a local tarmac airfield use ribbed until they wear smooth(in a very short time apparently) then use them on the beach dosent seem to slow them down ,In fact they go faster than me on ribbed tyres,so maybe smooth is better,(Mind some of them compete at national and international level so they would probably be just as fast on square wheels)

Thanks for the reply. Class 2,3,5,8 use smoothies on the beach. Mini Yacht sometimes use slicks as well. Blokart sticks to the standard tyre size and use most of the time the ribbed 4.00x6 wheelbarrow type. Tarmac/concrete, dirt, salt, sand, grass are all different and have a different approach. Tyre pressure, tread, stiffness and perhaps weight if there's a choise.

Here are my thoughts for tyres on the beach. Because the landyacht is not driven by traction, the tyres are mostly rolling. Perhaps I'm wrong, but traction means friction and therefore resistance. Rolling resitance is the enemy. Ribbed tyres will help to cope with the latteral forces. So there is some traction in corners. A ribbed tyre has a bigger surface than a smooth tyre and digs in the sand with each rib and gives slightly friction.

So the slick looks favourable on the beach, but isn't the rib the better compromise because of the lateral advantage?The block type tyre is ruled out I think for beaches, but perhaps also for other surfaces except for conrete. Okay I do realise that the number of tacks and bends in a track is of influance, but just let us discard that one for a bit.

glad to hear more oppinions

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kennatt said..
not much difference on sand except ribbed roll better than blocked type treads,I think ribbed have the slight edge,since they grip a little better and prevent sideways drifting. The guys who regularly race on a local tarmac airfield use ribbed until they wear smooth(in a very short time apparently) then use them on the beach dosent seem to slow them down ,In fact they go faster than me on ribbed tyres,so maybe smooth is better,(Mind some of them compete at national and international level so they would probably be just as fast on square wheels)

I know the feeling...

Greg has just fitted 26"x 4" slicks to his yacht and I'm still on "Phat Katana" 26" x 4" for comparisons.

Many thanks "Landyacht" for keeping me mobile mate with more tyres.

There definitely is a speed advantage with the slicks as we used to be pretty evenly paced. There seems to be no loss of cornering traction either on our lakes softer surface. Not sure they would work on Lake Lefroy's rock hard salt though. I think the "Maxxis Hookworms" are still king there.

I'm having bead troubles with the VEE RUBBER Fatbike tyres and have destroyed 3 so far. There are no cords in the bead. They just apply a kevlar strip around the bead that is bonded to the outside of the casing on each side and it rips/tears and the tyre comes off the inside of the rim with our cornering side loads. Definitely NOT fit for our purpose and certainly comes from not being able to generate these huge side loads while fitted on a Fat bike.

We never had this problem with the MUCH more expensive Fatbike "SURLYS" that had cords in the beads but were still folding tyres.

Our lake is wet at the moment and I'm still on knobby rear tyres to fully test (when/if it dries out) our thoughts on, if the slicks are definitely faster in all conditions????
I'm going to try these (like Greg) as well when I run out of the tyres I have on hand.

Full Slicks that are a lot harder in the sidewalls than we would like, but are quite a bit faster so far.

Time will tell if we are on the right track.

It has proved correct that multi-ribs were much quicker than block treaded tyres on the 5.6 Minis, by around 4 to 5 kmh on all surfaces.

Also the Multi-rib "King's" 400x8 are a much better constructed tyre than the same size "Deli's". The "Deli's" overlap all the 4 plies in the same spot producing a lump that throws the casing out of round. As they wear this really starts to show up as a big vibration at high speed.

Cheers Chook.

Thanks for the reply. So slicks are perhaps the better choice for the beach. But reading about the sidewalls and ply-rate raises new questions. Are stiff- or loose sidewalls preferable? I can imagine that stiff sidewalls make it drift more as loose walls keep better contact (or is it traction?). There's also tyre presure influancing rollresistance. The softer the surface, the softer the tyre presure, therefore more roll and perhaps highly stressfull on the bead and the walls. Wider rims or low profile would be better. Okay, I'm deviating a bit. Al there is to know about tyres is welcome.

Yes your right WFW.

I increased my Fatbike tyre pressure from 16 PSI up to the max 20 to try and help stop the tyre deforming too much while turning.

VEE RUBBER is just a cheap tyre with a cheap construction method I think. We had no trouble with Surlys and wore them through the plies.
Both original fatbike tyre brands were 120 threads per inch construction to get the maximum flex with minimal resistance for less friction.

They are fitted to 82mm wide rims that we bought the unspoked alloy rim and made our carbon reinforced centres with 9 solid "spokes". I'm heavy so covering my bets in this regard. Not had a problem with this construction and I have had some huge undoings in the yacht.

Lots of tyre experiments to see what achieves a good upwind speed. Anything will scream across the wind. We only use the Fatbike tryes and rims on our minis for social sailing on our local Pink Lake as it pretty soft in places and it helps us plough through the worst of it.

Greg has solid rims and mine are different Fatbike rims in that they have the large holes in the rims between the spoke holes for the PVC rim liner to be exposed.
The holes are there so when a bump is encountered the tyre doesnt have to lift the axle it just absorbs the impact by forcing the tube out slightly though these holes keeping the tyre in contact with the ground all the time and not loosing traction. This seems to work well to reduce mast shake in really rough going. When the mast shakes/vibrates it depowers the sail an unbelievable amount.

We try to sail at every opportunity and go out most days weather permitting. We usually average around 20 days of sailing a month during our pretty consistent summer weather pattern. This was on the 12th of last month. The top and bottom turning marks are 1.1 kilometers apart.


Yes we experiment with tyre pressures a lot, also camber testing. Doing some testing now with reducing wind resistance and using the body of the yacht as a sail fence. Most of all (and the most time consuming with the sewing) sail improvements for better performance. High aspect sails RULE!!!!! Over the years we have found out a whole lot about what doesnt work for us.

My new Yacht "Saline Solution". I made a mandrel and built up the 3 layers of plywood using Queensland hoop pine and epoxy.


Making the plywood sides. Total finished thickness of the plywood is 2.8mm. Greg was my tutor and helper doing this. Thanks mate.


It's still in the testing stages and being improved upon.
It's a poor day we sail that we dont learn something new. We call it "Rigging and frigging" round with setups.

When we travel away to compete this experience seems to help.

Chook2, thanks for the info and what a nice yacht the Saline Solution is. Greets from WFW from The Netherlands

Cheers and thanks for the kind remark WFW!!! She is my 27th yacht I've built.

I use this "axle jig" I made to build my axles for my yachts to get the camber absolutely correct first time up and have circular component holders as well. (one is wired on used for my Class 5). We now run all our wheels at 0.5 degrees of camber.

22-11-2014 I built it. Didn't realize it was so long ago. I've built/worn out 7 yachts since then.

I'm a heavy guy so all my Lake lefroy mini's have 25mm x 25mm x 2mm RHS doublers inside the axles to strengthen them. I have now upped this to 25 x25x 3 RHS on Saline Solution. This axle in the jig is for the 26" tyres/rims.

A triangulation measurement from the centre of the steering head back to each axle for an equal distance . Then just a final check to make sure my welding sequence has not distorted the axles and they are still set at zero toe-in/toe-out.

You can see in this pic that the T has been reinforced underneath as well due to cracking of my previous chassis with constant use.
Still drizzling rain here after the passing of Tropical cyclone "Seroja" last Saturday. We got no wind just gentle drizzle. Our Lake is going to be sticky for some time now.

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Chook2 said..
Cheers and thanks for the kind remark WFW!!! She is my 27th yacht I've built.

I use this "axle jig" I made to build my axles for my yachts to get the camber absolutely correct first time up and have circular component holders as well. (one is wired on used for my Class 5). We now run all our wheels at 0.5 degrees of camber.

22-11-2014 I built it. Didn't realize it was so long ago. I've built/worn out 7 yachts since then.

I'm a heavy guy so all my Lake lefroy mini's have 25mm x 25mm x 2mm RHS doublers inside the axles to strengthen them. I have now upped this to 25 x25x 3 RHS on Saline Solution. This axle in the jig is for the 26" tyres/rims.

A triangulation measurement from the centre of the steering head back to each axle for an equal distance . Then just a final check to make sure my welding sequence has not distorted the axles and they are still set at zero toe-in/toe-out.

You can see in this pic that the T has been reinforced underneath as well due to cracking of my previous chassis with constant use.
Still drizzling rain here after the passing of Tropical cyclone "Seroja" last Saturday. We got no wind just gentle drizzle. Our Lake is going to be sticky for some time now.

27..., I' m considering just one mini to create. Other than that I have a blokart and a class3. The cl3 is too much to haul to be usefull here in NL and the bk is nice to play arround and do some competition with. Rarely we do some ice sailing. I'm looking at tides and winds on the beaches mostly. Goodluck with the weather over there

Select to expand quote

Chook2 said..
Cheers and thanks for the kind remark WFW!!! She is my 27th yacht I've built.

I use this "axle jig" I made to build my axles for my yachts to get the camber absolutely correct first time up and have circular component holders as well. (one is wired on used for my Class 5). We now run all our wheels at 0.5 degrees of camber.

22-11-2014 I built it. Didn't realize it was so long ago. I've built/worn out 7 yachts since then.

I'm a heavy guy so all my Lake lefroy mini's have 25mm x 25mm x 2mm RHS doublers inside the axles to strengthen them. I have now upped this to 25 x25x 3 RHS on Saline Solution. This axle in the jig is for the 26" tyres/rims.

A triangulation measurement from the centre of the steering head back to each axle for an equal distance . Then just a final check to make sure my welding sequence has not distorted the axles and they are still set at zero toe-in/toe-out.

You can see in this pic that the T has been reinforced underneath as well due to cracking of my previous chassis with constant use.
Still drizzling rain here after the passing of Tropical cyclone "Seroja" last Saturday. We got no wind just gentle drizzle. Our Lake is going to be sticky for some time now.

27..., I' m considering just one mini to create. Other than that I have a blokart and a class3. The cl3 is too much to haul to be usefull here in NL and the bk is nice to play arround and do some competition with. Rarely we do some ice sailing. I'm looking at tides and winds on the beaches mostly. Goodluck with the weather over there