I went kayaking for the first time alone and I ran into a problem removing the Kayak from the water. I have the Advanced elements Anglers Kayak.
My questions is has anyone come up with away to pull kayaks out of water without dragging the bottom when your alone.
Thank you,
Ken
Wheels
I guess a set of wheels is probably the best answer if you can’t carry the boat on your own. I’ve seen some pretty well sanded-down keels in my day and I’ve never been fond of dragging boats. There are times when there is nothing else that can be done.
Rick
Lift It!
Is yours the inflatable one? It only weighs 41lbs so you should be able to lift it out fairly easily. Maybe grab it by the accessory bar and seat back? Of course, you’ll get your feet wet!
There again, I bring my fiberglass kayak up on gravel put-ins all the time and as long as I’m careful I really don’t damage the gelcoat. I do lift the kayak and carry it to some nearby grass or to my car though.
Material? Inflatable?
I’ve seen a guy who really loved the smooth bottom of his boat use a walmart blue rollup camp pad at the takeout. They lay the mat down and pull the boat onto that. They secure the boat to that and pull it like a sled. Worked well enough on grass.
Probably not so much on gravel/pavement.
Any rigs to strap wheels to bottom before you beach it?
just drag it
Most of us just drag our kayaks onto the shore. Why is that a problem for you? Your kayak has abrasion pads on the hull and you can always glue on more if they get too scuffed. I’ve always hauled my Feathercraft folding kayaks, with the same kind of rubberized fabric hull, onto shore all the time, whether it was grass, sand, mud, gravel or concrete. And those boats cost 6 times what yours did.
But if you really don’t want to drag it, there are companies that make wide nylon straps that you can wrap around the hull and put over your shoulder to haul a boat carrying it sideways – perhaps that would be useful for you, though the wideness of that model you have might make it a little awkward. And you would obviously have to empty it of all your gear before doing that.
I’d advise you to just drag it and not worry about it. Don’t get hung up on scuffing your boat – it is made to be used.
Yes, I have, do this-
~How to Land On Nasty Surfaces, All By Your Lonesome Self~
Bring the kayak up to the shoreline in shallow water, selecting a spot that you can walk in the water without sinking in too deep, or cutting your feet on sharp rocks (you are wearing something on your feet, such as water-sandals, aren’t you ?). Depending on the depth of the water, you may want to bring your kayak in parallel to the shore, instead of bow first.
Take your paddle, and steady yourself with it as you exit the kayak. If the water is murky, take the paddle and measure the depth of the water first where you intend to put your feet, to make sure there’s not a sudden drop off. Shallow is better. Now get out. Stand up.
Grasp one end of the kayak, lift it just a little, and pull it a shore until you feel the keel bottom just start to drag. Stop. Put that first end of the kayak on any sand or mud you find, or stick something under it. Sand, mud, or dirt is usually fine.
Go out to the other end of the kayak, still in the water, grasp the handle/toggle, and start to walk it into the shore by PIVOTING around the other end now on shore, in a big half circle.
Keep going until the back end is now up front. Stop. You’re now out of the water.
Unload kayak if you have a lot of stuff. Kayaks are designed to perfectly balance from a center point, and even a pound or two of stuff in a certain place can make balancing the kayak VERY wonky when you attempt to pick it up and move. You may find that you can pick up your empty kayak with a bit of practice, after all.
Pivot again,taking the end towards the back and bringing it around to the front, leaving one end on the ground, as many times as you need to do to get to where your vehicle is going to be when you put it back on.
You are now moving the kayak without having to pick it up or dragging it too much. Where I shore- launch a lot, there are a lot of really sharp rocks layered into the mud, depending on the water levels, and I don’t want to drag it, and I don’t want to be trying to carry it over the rocks, either, sometimes. Plus, when it’s windy, when you pick up a big kayak, if you have any sort of big cross wind, it’s gonna catch it like a giant sail, and it can really be sort of a wrestling match getting the kayak on the truck without it wanting to blow off before you get the first strap done. Yeah, I can pick the kayak up, but it’s a lot different situation carrying it across rocks when I’m already done paddling, than in my nice sheltered, relatively flat driveway. Would be sort of a bummer to sprain an ankle.
You may wonder why I don’t just use “the launch ramp” - this is how we’ve had to adapt out here in drought- land, the “launch ramp” keeps moving farther and farther down into the canyons as the reservoir shrinks… getting steeper and rockier as the water goes waaaay down in the summer… the regular boaters really need their little temporary road-grader driveway for their trailers, with the water depth, and I can come up next to it and we can co-exist 
I would offer to help
you if I saw you doing this!
Pick It Up If You Can
After you find the best way for you to exist. If you really don’t want it to touch dirt or anything else, buy a plastic tarp.
I’m thinking of how to get my 14’ Illusion down river past Pearce Ferry rapids on the Colorado. That’s a mile. I’m leaning towards making carrying straps. The Park Service doesn’t allow people to launch at Pearce Ferry take out. People do that because it’s very rarely patrolled. Some people are packing inflatables that far.
try a
wheeleeze…the Weez goes on in the water.
Ah, I’m okay
I need the practice, and it actually goes very fast.
I do get a few funny looks sometimes, but I am super cautious about not getting stuck in what mud there may be from the water level dropping, so I don’t take the truck right to the edge of anything without careful scouting first. I also almost got hung up on some rocks last year, even with the 4 wh dr engaged.
And I see people parking too close sometimes, ignoring those signs about how the water level CAN RISE UP SUDDENLY WITHOUT WARNING because of upstream releases (or sudden rainstorms). I just don’t know about this. Actually saw a truck last year parked IN THE WATER off side to one of the launch areas, and so deep the water partially covering the truck hubcaps. It was there when I launched and still there when I returned. That has to be SO BAD for everything that can rust/seize up, not to mention the person now probably needed a winch, a tow AND a repair because certainly you are not going anywhere for long with your exhaust pipe underwater…
Pardon my silly pivot turns… works for me !
Step it like a ladder works for me. Just
pick up one end waist high, then chest high. Then begin taking one step forward as you move one hand forward. Continue stepping until you reach a balance point. It’s really easy after you try it a few times. If you want to get fancy, you can flip the boat over in the process.