Getting it up on the car roof

[DaveKunz]

Just finished work on my OT 33959-17. She's a beauty, certainly more so than she was when I started November of 2013. This year she'll celebrate her 100th birthday back on the water where she belongs.

IF, that is, I can get her up on top of my Subaru wagon. She's a little longer and a little heavier than my 15' Kennebec. Of course, when I have a canoeing buddy to help, there's no big problem. But I want to figure out a good way to ease her up there, and get her back down again, by myself. And without damaging the canoe, my car, or my back. And I'd prefer to build something myself rather than paying for a prefab mounting machine. And I don't have access to a good sky hook!

Any suggestions?

 

[pklonowski]

A block & tackle, hanging from the garage roof... but make sure you can fit the car with canoe out the doorway.

 

[Greg Nolan]

What kind of rack do you have? Yakima has a bar extended that makes one-person loading much easier:



see: http://yakima.factoryoutletstore.com/details/0-102182/yakima-boatloader.html

 

[Kathryn Klos]

Fred Capenos wrote an article for Wooden Canoe describing the contraption he built to lift a canoe onto the top of a vehicle single-handed. Issue 149, pages 6-10. I saw it in operation at an Assembly and it was slick! Back issues of Wooden Canoe are available through the WCHA Store.

 

[fred capenos]

Dave

If you can't find the back issue of the article...here are a few photos to get the general idea of my loading rack.. it works really well for us...

https://plus.google.com/photos/103690337718847613881/albums/6030824387938712113

 

[DaveKunz]

Thanks Paul. I do use a block & tackle to store the canoe in the garage, but I also need to be able to load and unload when parked on the uneven ground near my favorite streams.

 

[DaveKunz]

Thanks Greg. I've seen extenders like that one before, but my roof rack is the standard issue Subaru rack, and I'd rather not have to buy a new rack to cart the canoe around. Besides, I'd still have to horse one end of the canoe up to the extender with my rapidly fading back muscles!

 

[DaveKunz]

Thanks Kathryn and Fred. I'm sure glad I hang onto my old issues of Wooden Canoe, and that someone else can tell me what's in 'em! I dug out Issue 149, and read all about your lifter, Fred. Very impressive!

I'm kinda leaning toward something along that line right now myself, although my idea wouldn't be as well fabricated. (Unless it doesn't work, in which case I'll be back to the article.) I saw a similar rig on YouTube, except that it has a series of rubber stops mounted on each rail. So you can walk the canoe up the slanted rails, moving one end at a time from stop to stop. At the top, you raise the rails much the same as you do, but by then the canoe is half onto the car rack, so only has to be moved a couple feet to get it centered. I think I can make the whole thing with a few pieces of 2x3 pine and some rubber stoppers. We'll see!

If it works, I'll post some pics. Thanks again! (Still looking for ideas, though!)