How much is too much, or Cartopping question.

[ErikG]

Okay, so I'm building this stitch and tape pram. It's 8' long, 4-1/2' wide and will weigh about a hundred pounds. As the project is starting to look like an actual boat, I've been considering exactly how I'm going to get it to the water. I'd like to put it on top of the van but obviously this is a lot of weight to get six feet in the air. I've been considering my options and it looks like this.

1) Buy/build a trailer. Pro: easier loading/ unloading. Con: More cash outlay. Have to get plates and pay for them year after year. Not much load to be towing at highway speeds, especially when the load is semi-aerodynamic. I'm concerned about safety here. (Oh, and the fruit of my labor flying into the front of a tractor trailer hauling machine part to points North, only to be smashed into an indescribable number of tiny bits.)

2) Rig up a strong roof rack with some sort of roller assembly to get the boat up and down. Pro: No trailer to have to deal with. I can store the boat on pulleys at ceiling level in my garage (12' ceilings). Con: Oh, my aching back and body paint if I screw something up loading or unloading.

If anyone wants to pipe in on either option (or one I haven't thought of), I'd sure appreciate it.

Erik

[PugetSound]

Eric,
I have been doing it for years. Admittedly, I don't usually put a 100 lb. boat on the roof of my truck and said roof isn't 6 ft. off the ground (a 1989 Ford Ranger with camper shell).

The largest boat I have put on my roof rack was a waterlogged Sunfish. I was taking it home to repair a broken halyard cleat and replace the waterlogged foam floatation. Dry weight of the boat is 140 lbs and I estimate that this one weighted considerably more. I regularly will put an 18 ft. Klepper on top.

The way to handle the problem is this:
Get yourself some roof racks (Yakima) with round bar crossbars. Also pick up a 3 ft. length of PVC pipe of about 3 or 4 inches diameter. Run the plastic pipe onto the crossbar of the aft rack. Make sure that the aft rack is near the back of the vehicle.

Now, you are almost ready. All you need now is a small piece of rug about 3 ft. square. What you do is place one end of the boat on the rug an appropriate distance back from the rear of the truck and lean the other end of the boat on the aft roof rack "roller" (the pvc pipe). Now all you do is lift the back end of the boat and push it onto the roof. Reverse the procedure to get it off (don't forget to bring the rug).

I have used this procedure quite a bit and it saves alot of back strain. You never have to lift more than half of the boat weight.

[Mr.O]

Mr. Puget Sound In the process of carrying your boat on the Yakima rack topside; do you also tie down the two ends of the boat or just secure the boat to the racks and consider that sufficient? I see Yakima racks show a device in their catalog for tying the ends down but is it really necessary? In the past I have secured my canoe on the racks without tying down the ends but have always wondered how safe that is. Your opinion will be appreciated. Thanks Jack

[Vern D]

In Oregon, if the trailer/boat combination is less than, hmmmmm 1800 lbs I think, the trailer doesn't need plates. Is that possibly the same in your state?
I once hauled 2 8"X10" x 20ft doug fir on the lumber rack of my Nissan P/U. :eek: That's probably more than the reasonable and prudent mariner should carry, but it needed to be done.
I'm actually lloking at racks for my "new" Trooper. Thanks for your question.
Good luck.

Vern and Jake (the wonder dog)

[Todd Bradshaw]

I used to be a Yakima dealer and they say very specifically to tie down the ends of boats. If you don't, you're asking for trouble. This is one thing which will present a problem for a cartopped 8' dinghy. The ends of the boat are so far from the ends of the van that the tie-downs to the bumpers will be pretty useless. There is also a gizmo called a "Maine Roll-On" if memory serves, which attaches to the back bar of Yakima, Thule, Quick & Easy and similar racks to aid rolling the boat up from the rear.

[skuthorp]

I cartop a 15.7'' Macgreggor sailing canoe up the right way in a purpose built cradle with a roller at the back. It's almost exactly the same length as the car. It sits on a tradesmans strength roof rack and is tied down as is the canoe, which has a cockpit cover to travel. It weighs about 75lb and is about the limit for me to single handle without undue risk. I dont tie down the ends except for long trips. It strikes me that a dingy bottom is close to a wing section and you may get undue lift at take-off speed!

[skuthorp]

Sorry, the boat that is is 75lb, not the rack!

[Donn]

Erik..I used to cartop a 12' aluminum boat that weighed about 100#. I used a loading system that came from Sears (30 years ago) that consisted of a vertical steel pipe which clamped to the rear bumper, and a wheel which clambed to the bow of the boat.

To operate, you merely turn the boat upside down, with the transom at the rear bumper. You then lift the transon and place it in a sliding clamp on the pipe. You then lift the clamp up to roof rack height and tighten the clamp. The bow rolls easily on the wheel during the lifting, and you aren't lifting the full weight of the boat.

Once the transom is high enough, you simply pick up the bow, and walk it around to the front bar of the roof rack, again, not carrying the full weight.

It worked great, and I used it on a van that was over 6' tall. I just had to buy a long enough length of pipe to reach the top.

Don't know if they're still made, but it would be easy enough to fabricate one.

Here's a more expensive approach:
http://www.eideboatloader.com/boatloader/boatloader3.jpg

http://www.eideboatloader.com/boatloader/boatloader.html

...or, a cheaper approach:

http://www.rollerloader.com/girl.JPG

http://www.rollerloader.com/ease.htm

This one uses a hand or electric winch:

http://www.roofrackcity.com.au/images/car.gif

http://www.roofrackcity.com.au/site/boatLoader.asp

[ 04-16-2002, 10:22 AM: Message edited by: donnwest ]

[Bruce Hooke]

I've always sort of suspected that the reason Yakima and the others say to always tie down the ends is because they have to assume that the person doing the tieing can't do a good enough job to really secure a boat just to the bars. That said, I almost always tie down the ends just to be safe and also because I don't trust roofracks and so prefer to have my boat attached to the vehicle itself. However, of course, a short dinghy is much less likely to twist to one side or the other than a canoe is. After all, on a van the tie down ropes going to the racks are going to be fairly close to the ends of the boat anyway.

My final test after tieing down a boat is to try to wiggle the boat. I figure a small amount of movement at the ends is OK but I should basically be able to wiggle the car by wiggling the boat. The key, of course, is making sure that the ropes going to the racks cannot slide around on the rack and that they are REALLY tight.

I suppose the final point is, how hard is it to tie down the ends? The extra couple of minutes it takes is probably worth the added feeling of security during the drive...

[Don Maurer]

A few years ago, I was driving through Missouri with two sea kayaks in saddles on a Yakima rack on top of my SUV. Both bow and stern were tied down. As we were driving along the Mississippi, we were hit by a gust of staight line wind. It blew the car off the road, and broke one of the castings that lock the rack to the door gutters. The kayaks went flying up in the air, still attached to the rack. The only thing that kept them from ending up in Illinois were the bow and stern tie downs.

[AngWood]

Tie down the ends just tight enough that the ropes or straps don't flap around. I think Yakima cautions us to tie down the ends as "insurance"; the ropes/straps that go across the boat and fasten it to the rack should be really tight, as someone else has said.

I faced a similar dilemma (100 lb. boat cartopping). My solution was to replace my 14-year-old Civic with a two-year-old Nissan pickup. I know not everyone can do that (it was time to replace the Civic anyway), but in my mind pickup trucks are the very best carriers of small boats. Just slide the boat in, tie it down, and drive off.

[Paul Scheuer]

My two cents. Good ideas above, If you think it through, you never actually have to lift the whole load at once. As far as securing the load, I always (almost) use one more line than it takes to keep the load from shitfing. If I'm using a clamp-on rack, I tie at least one line to the something other than the rack. I prefer honest-to-god ropes to straps, buckles, etc. I use line large enough that I can see the knots and tie/untie in the cold/wet/dark. I have several sets of lines with eye splices in one end I put the spliced end on the passenger side, and tie my knots so that I can see them from the driver's seat. A round turn & two (sometimes three) half-hitches, is my vote. Securing the extreem ends of the load is on a case by case basis.

[Buddy Sharpton]

Do this a lot myself. If you can avoid a trailer, and dealing with bearings going out from immersion do so. No way I would put the trailer of a eight foot boat in the water. An eight foot pram ought to finish out at 75 pounds or so. Two man kayaks are about 80 pounds with rudder gear, so I don't think you'll have a hundred pounds.

When you lean the boat up against the back of the car and pick up the transom, you will unfortunately be lifting more than half the weight ( I think the cosine of the angle as a multiplier) But when level , yeah, halk the weight will be on the car.

By all means use a rope safety/ a vee to each side of the front bumper works best and will eliminate an impending tragedy for the car behind.you should a tiedoen or raingutter bracketclamp bounce loose.

[htom]

Tie the ends down; the rope should be taut, you don't have to bend either the boat or the bumper.

It's to prevent the boat from folding upwards from wind pressure. That is, the middle of the boat stays attached to the car, but the end tries to fly; no rope, no restraint at the end, the boat folds. I've seen canoes that it's happened to, they happened to be aluminum. Other materials might have broken instead of folding.

In both cases, btw, the canoes were tied and the ties broke from abrasion and lack of inspection.

[ErikG]

Wow guys! Thanks. Lots of options. Thanks for the pics Don. I've got the idea now.

Erik

[bainbridgeisland]

I regularly load an 80 pound sailing dinghy as follows. Tip the boat on its side. Bend at the knees. Slip left forearm under the centerboard trunk. grasp the rail with the right hand. Stand up. At this point the boat is supported with the left left forearm and the right hand balances the boat.

Walk over to the car, right elbow pointed at the roof of the car. Lower the rail in the right hand onto the roof racks. You are now sandwiched between the boat and the car.

Lastly, use both hands to grasp the centerboard trunk and then the other rail as you slide the boat over your head onto the rack.

I am 50 years old with a desk job so I don't think it takes too much strength. Just balance.

[PugetSound]

Mr. O:
Whether or not you tie down the ends of a long boat when securing it to roof racks (that is without specific cradles) kind of depends on how fast and how far you are going. What you are really looking to prevent when tying down the ends of something like an 18' Klepper is to prevent the boat from walking sideways.

I haven't seen the Yakima device but I imagine that it constitutes some sort of bumper clamp. I do not think that it is always necessary to tie down the ends of a boat. It really depends alot on how heavy the boat is and just how well and what technique you use to tie it down in the body of the boat. I have found that, if I am only going a couple of miles on local streets I can get away with very little in the way of tiedowns. But then again, there was the time . . . .

When I was living in Vallejo (northeast corner of San Francisco Bay), I was going kayaking nearly every day (in an old 14' kayak) so I got into the habit of just throwing a line over the boat and sort of tying it down rather loosely. Worked OK for quite a while until one day I swept into the parking lot a little too fast and as I turned the truck in a wide gracefull turn (lot was large and empty)the kayak -with an equal amount of grace - proceeded to shed it's loose restraints and kept on going straight as an arrow. The boat was undamaged and I learned to take a little more time to tie it down properly. Also, there was nobody around to see this happen. :D

[ 04-18-2002, 01:43 AM: Message edited by: PugetSound ]

[Todd Bradshaw]

Something rather important is missing from this discussion. Having spent the better part of 20 years out in the parking lot trying to get racks to fit peoples cars without putting dents in the roof or pulling off the trim, I can tell you for a fact that the reason for end tiedowns for boats is just as much to keep the boat from tearing the rack off the car as it is to keep the boat attached to the rack. With the energy crisis of the 70's the sheet metal got a lot thinner, the cars got smaller, forcing the bars to be closer together and the old, solid raingutter became a thing of the past. Rack companies these days have to really be creative just to get a halfway decent and reasonably secure fit on many of the modern automobiles. Many of these installations just aren't capable of taking the kind of up-lift strain or fore and aft stress that a canoe or boat can put on them without the aid of secure end tie-downs. For every yahoo who'll stand there and tell you that he just runs a couple bungy-cords over his Grumman and hits the road, there's one that really did hit the road and it makes all of us look like morons to the general public. Do the sport a favor, get some low-stretch line or straps (Dacron or polypro) and take the time to tie your boat down properly. Anything else is just an excuse for being lazy.

[ErikG]

Todd: Yes, this may wind up being a problem. I was looking at one of our two vans (the previa) and noting that there are no rain gutters, and the roof rack is only about five feet long. IT feels pretty secure, but this is ,like you say, going to be a creative installation. No problem with the '85 toyota van (they didn't even have names back then). Big, sturdy rain gutters that run straight as an arrow from the front to the back of the vehicle. Only problem is that we are likely selling that vehicle in the near future. :( Guess I'll come up with something.

E

[Figment]

Hey, PugetSound...

exactly how does one go about replacing waterlogged foam in a sunfish?

[bud]

http://www.shelterassociatesltd.com/images/car_and_boat.jpg
I wuz told I was crazy to do this, but I've logged about 8,000 miles like this.
And believe it or not, I can get it up there & down by myself, it's pretty funny to see, I guess, but I can do it!

[Steve Lansdowne]

I put an 80 lb Whisp on some roofracks on my small pickup that have rollers. It is not totally easy, but it can be done. Tie downs from the bow to the left and right side of the bumper or other secure location under the hood also serve to keep the bow from wandering side to side. If you get the boat on crooked or it goes crooked as you're driving along, your boat's future doesn't look bright.

[Keith Wilson]

I'd vote for option #1. Trailers are a lot easier with even a 100 lb. boat. It actually may end up being cheaper that a set of Yakima or Thule racks.

Check this out:
http://www.northerntool.com/cgi-bin/ncommerce3/ProductDisplay?prrfnbr=7262&prmenbr=6970
This link shows a type of trailer I've used two times for small light boats (Bolger Gypsy @15' x 4' x 150# or so, and a lapstrake skiff @ 12' x 4' x 180#). Modifications are not difficult, since the thing bolts together. I added a longer tongue in both cases, made of square steel tubing from the scrap yard, although you may not need that with an 8' boat. Making bunks to fit the boat is easy. I took a link out of the springs to make it ride better. Believe me, it won't fly; the weight of the steel trailer will hold it down, and launching is a bunch easier. I've seen similar small cheap trailers elsewhere; I bought mine at Northern Hydraulics because it's close and convenient.

Disadvantages are:
- This trailer is of pretty cheap construction, although addquate, but I don't know if I'd want to use it in salt water.
- Dragging a trailer is more hassle than driving around with a boat on the roof
- You do have to pay for plates
- One more @#$%!! thing to store

[clancy]

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid18/p4e3f1b6f5643f180d05319ced18bc86f/fdcae841.jpg
The boat is a Current Designs Pisces 17'10" the car a Honda CRX about 12'. It's a Thule rack with saddles that I custom fit to the roof profile. I won't use this rig on a highway but regularly do 40-45 on country roads. I get plenty of looks of dis-belief but haven't had any mishaps. Bow and stern straps and away you go...

[Donn]

I used to carry a 14' aluminum boat on top of the first up-sized Honda Civic (what a GREAT car)...my friends used to comment that when I got to the lake, I could just flip the whole thing over, and still have room to fish.