...maybe a longer rope. After pulling the slack out to the rear, cross rope ends over the stem and down opposite sides. Feed rope ends under the bar and out to opposing sides of the van. Fasten rope ends to outboard ends of forward bar - again, using the trucker's hitch.
The initial feeding through of the looped rope from rear to front of van could be done along one side (inboard of rack towers) and then adjusted from the ends of the van. You could use some device (a fishing pole, maybe) to manipulate the looped end over the front stem - and the free ends over the rear stem, as well.
I think it should be do-able, and it would hold the boat down as good as straps.
Sure, and school buses should be equipped with seat belts, too.
I don’t have control over those issues, but I will do my best to transport my boats as safely as possible, and I’d appreciate it if everyone else on the roads I travel would do the same.
Always 2 straps plus bow and stern lines Driving in NY State just a few days ago at highway speed, someone made a very abrupt lane change right in front of me without signaling causing me to make a scary maneuver myself.
I am really glad our 2 kayaks on our Thule rack had 2 straps (separately) over each plus bow and stern lines for each.
or here’s a controversial question What do you think of just setting your kayak on the kayak rack and driving away like that, without tying anything down?
What if the bow line broke? Then there’s nothing to keep the boat from sliding backwards right off the roof. Once the thing hits the road, something tells me the stern line would also break, if not before then.
If space allowed, I should have titled the thread something like this:
"When three boats are carried on top of a very high vehicle, what's the best way to secure the middle boat so as to make loading and unloading it as convenient as possible."
I appreciate those who interpreted the thread that way. The way I titled it understandably provoked unhelpful recitations of safety cliches.
Switching briefly to safety, of course any component of a cartopping system can fail. However, there seem to be a few empirically dubious assumptions in some posts here.
First, there is an asumption that there is huge wind up-force on a cartopped hull while driving. I doubt the net up-force is much, if anything, especially on a long van roof with widely spaced bars -- which is my specific example. There may even be a net wind down-force, especially on upside-down hulls, which mildly presses the hulls down onto the bars. This vertical wind force certainly must vary with the different shapes of different vehicles and hulls.
Second, even if there is a net up-force on the hulls, there is an assumption in some posts that bow and stern lines would be more amenable to up-force failure than over-hull straps or ropes. That, of course, would be a function of the tensile strength of the various ropes and straps in use.
The rescue rope I was proposing to use for bow and stern lines has far greater tensile strength than the common polypropylene cam straps that most boaters use over hulls. For example, NRS 1" poly cam straps are rated at 1500 lbs. NRS rescue rope in 3/8" size is rated at 1900 lbs. for standard rope, 3282 lbs. for NFPA rope, and 5261 lbs. for Dyneema rope.
Third, the bow and stern ropes in my specifically proposed situation would be attached to a metal bumper, which is much, much less likely to fail than the rack load bars to which over-straps/ropes are commonly attached. Moreover, the rescue rope bow-stern lines have no cam buckle to fail.
The only failure point left for my hypothesized bow-stern lines would be their attachment point to the boat. In my mind this attachment point, the way I do it, is at least as strong as the typical rack tower foot attachment to a roof, which I don't use. All my racks are bolted to the roofs of my vehicles.
In any event, I've decided not to do this for reasons other than rope failure. I think the down stress, yaw and longitudinal sliding potentials of the hull are too great at highway speed -- plus some posters in this thread and privately have given me some good ideas on using rope tricks for the middle boat instead of cam straps needing a high ladder.
center boat This may sound overly simplistic, but with two ropes you can easily tie down the center boat to the rack. Toss the rope at each end over the center boat so that the end fall to the roof between it and the boats on each side. For the bow, reach under the boat and run the ropes under the bars toward the front, and tie to the rear bar. Do the opposite for the stern.
Don’t think you get the picture Although I said I was done, I know you are trying to be helpful, but I’m not sure I have even made the dimensional picture clear.
I boat alone in remote places all over the continent and like to take three different hulls for diverse waters. Hence, I load and unload boats alone.
I want to be able to load, tie down, untie, and unload the middle boat WITHOUT fiddling with the boats on either side when they are already tied down in place. In other words, I go boating with my middle boat while the two side boats stay on the van. The only way to do this is to be able to slide the middle boat onto the roof, or off the roof, from the back – and then tie it down somehow.
My bars are 82" off the ground. If there are two 14" canoes on each side, that comprises a literal 8 foot (96") “wall” blocking my side access to the middle slot.
My rear bar is about 4’ from the back of the van. The front bar is about 7’ from the front of the van. The bars are 80" wide. I can’t reach under the bars to tie ropes or straps to the middle position, faced with the 8’ wall, unless I have a tall ladder to reach the rear bar. To reach under the front bar, on the sharply sloped hood of the Dodge van, is essentially impossible for me at my age without an even taller ladder and a lot of gymnastic contortions.
Therefore, even with a ladder, I end up having to unload at least one of the side boats to access the middle slot to affix over-the-hull straps or ropes to the middle boat. Removing or fiddling with the side boats is what I’m trying to avoid.
My solution in recent years has been to only travel with two boats, one on each side of the bars, but that means I have to give up the hull diversity I have spent so much of my life and fortune acquiring.
Airline passengers wear seatbelts on take off and landing, and when requested in turbulent air.
there is a saying: your kayak (canoe) is your pfd. It’s also your lifeboat. I suppose by your “logic” it’s foolishly redundant to go out on a Great Lake in both a boat and a pfd.
as for seatbelts - when you wear one, you actually do wear two - a shoulder harness and a lap belt.
nice try though.
Genius. I can see why one strap makes sense to you. So you don’t double wrap. Would that your father did.
Loop strap You might be able to use a loop strap for the center boat. With a loop strap, you have two pieces, the loop strap and buckle are on one side and a simple strap is tied to the bar on the other side.
Wiith the right length loop strap, the buckle would be up on one side of the canoe, within reach (hopefully). The idea is that you throw the simple strap over the canoe, run it through the buckle and pull back across.
What is the failure mode? What will fail? If that front rope breaks, the boat will get picked up by the wind and pulled off. It will then get dragged behind you until beat to death or until the back rope is beat up enough to fail and let the boat tumble down the road.
So use two front ropes/straps and don’t tie them to the giant knives under the bumper. Problem solved. I’d drive behind you just because your smart enough to use more than just fishing line or twine for this.
When you get sued for killing someone behind you there will be a nice long list of people on this forum that can come and testify that they told you to strap your canoe down properly.
the subject is done The OP is not stupid. He has lots of experience long distance transport and was just looking for help with that middle boat and perhaps some suggestions he might have overlooked.
Certainly not looking for the bashing some of you are so eager to give.