Tim the Inspector
Kayakaholic
Hi all,
Even though I don't currently own a canoe I've begun thinking ahead to how I will cart one around and the easiest way looks like cartopping. I already have a set of roof bars for my car so that part is covered.
Now, when I load up my kayak I put a set of cradles on the roof bars, throw the boat on them then run two straps around the circumference of the hull, one on each side of the cockpit. I cinch them down as tight as they'll go, skip the ropes of the bow and stern (I don't want to ruin the paint on my bumpers) and the kayak won't go anywhere. I've driven 800km at speeds approaching 130km/h at times and the boat didn't budge at all, I even had some tape on the hull as a reference mark to see how much it crept on the trip.
My worry is that I can't get away with this with a wooden canoe. I'd skip the cradles and just put it upside down on the roof bars but I'm worried about what the straps might do to the structure if they're over tightened. Also, the roof bars are pretty close together (relative to a 16 foot canoe) so do I need to be worried about what bow and stern tie down lines will do? I'm kind of picturing the reverse of hogging but slightly more violent.
Are my concerns reasonable or are wooden canoes a lot stronger than I think?
-Tim
Even though I don't currently own a canoe I've begun thinking ahead to how I will cart one around and the easiest way looks like cartopping. I already have a set of roof bars for my car so that part is covered.
Now, when I load up my kayak I put a set of cradles on the roof bars, throw the boat on them then run two straps around the circumference of the hull, one on each side of the cockpit. I cinch them down as tight as they'll go, skip the ropes of the bow and stern (I don't want to ruin the paint on my bumpers) and the kayak won't go anywhere. I've driven 800km at speeds approaching 130km/h at times and the boat didn't budge at all, I even had some tape on the hull as a reference mark to see how much it crept on the trip.
My worry is that I can't get away with this with a wooden canoe. I'd skip the cradles and just put it upside down on the roof bars but I'm worried about what the straps might do to the structure if they're over tightened. Also, the roof bars are pretty close together (relative to a 16 foot canoe) so do I need to be worried about what bow and stern tie down lines will do? I'm kind of picturing the reverse of hogging but slightly more violent.
Are my concerns reasonable or are wooden canoes a lot stronger than I think?
-Tim
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