impressive (and I’m not a canoer)
lightest, heaviest?
longest, shortest?
best in WW, best flatwater(or fastest)?
most (count) by Manufacturer (& which)?
what are you getting next?
(I know not to ask favorite)
Heaviest has to be a Whitesell Piranha, if I exclude Chestnut Pal wood/canvas tandem I own.
Lightest would be a Bell Flashfire.
Shortest is a Blackhawk Shadow 11’6" or a Blackhawk Proem.
Have never owned a canoe over 17 foot in length; my wife and I went to solos for each decades ago.
My favorite ww solo was a Mohawk Probe 12 II.
The Bell Wildfire, and Mad River Guide are my favorite flatwater solos.
Fastest solos I ever had were the Dagger Sojourn, and a Mad
River Screamer.
I have owned more Blackhawks than any other brand. Also rans would be Mad River, Mohawk, Dagger, and Bell.
I no longer buy new canoes. I buy used “garage queens”, or boats I think I’ll enjoy restoring and paddling. Canoes in that category are too numerous to list.
My favorite canoe was 3 different canoes; (1) Curtis Dragonfly, (2) Swift SRT, and (3) Bell Wildfire in kevlar layup. All “regrettably” sold to finance other toys, wild women, Irish whiskey, etc
Category X (challenge to paddle boats) Blackhawk Proem, Perception HD-1, and Mad River Flashback.
That was fun…
BOB
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I have to find storage for at least 2 of my kayaks, one 17 feet and one 18 feet, no garage and my shed will not fit either of these but I do have a large crawl space under my house with 2 openings, I could slide the kayaks in there, if I do that how do I store them one their back w cockpit opening down or up and is that aa good idea, on boards , wrapped in something? I looked into a rack but it would be outside and the bay gets pretty windy, may lose the tarp and they can been seen from the street and this is a weekend house. so I am thinking under the house may be my best bet.
Crank 'em up, crank ‘em down.
Built the garage with a 12’ celling on the first floor originally for our motorhome. The height allowed me to build a couple of heavy duty racks for 1 or 2 kayaks each and the Mad River. Since then we’ve replaced the kayaks with much lighter solo canoes.
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I don’t usually store the Stratos on the boat but I think this was when I was rebuilding the rack it sits on so it was there temporarily
It normally lives here (usually covered)
Here is what i built 2 days ago. we have a boardwalk from the house to the garage and I have had the boats on sawhorses there all year. Kind of a good place to keep for loading on the car and out of the way. The 2 sets of horses took up a lot of space and were hard to mow under or rake leaves.
I was going to hang them from the rafters in the garage/barn but the more I thought about it more critters would find a home in them there than out in the cold.
I’m not too worried in storing them outside one advantage of having cheap boats.
Will stain the wood to match next summer.
I recently got a deal on Craig’s List for a couple of Harken Kayak Hoisters. I have to say, it’s a very nice system. The retail price of $150-ish would be tough to swallow, but it’s a quality system.
I was dead set on getting a “kit” kayak hoist system until I studied the components a bit and realized how it was set up, and that you can get your own components (typically with a much higher weight rating) for much less than the “kit” systems.
I used 4 single pulleys, 2 eye hooks, a 50’ 3/8" rope and 2 boat cleats for tie off. I already had the screws for mounting the pulleys and the two tie down straps I used. I would have used a double pulley but Home Depot didn’t have one rated over 50 lbs in stock.
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I’m with you. I got the Harken Hoisters for $30 each, so down around the price of hardware store-parts. But some folks are fine spending the money if they don’t have to figure out the DIY approach.
I got one of these:
RAD Sportz 125 lb. Capacity Kayak Canoe Lift Hoist Storage Rack-HWD630554 - The Home Depot
Carried by Home Depot so should be widely available for ~$22. Lowes has a similar one for about the same price, looks the same, different branding.
I installed it already and it seems to work fine.
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That HD system looks about the same price as buying the pieces yourself, hard to argue with that.
Does it seem like it will hold up over time?
It seems like it will be ok. The brake definitely works (and takes a little getting used to how to release it.) Most parts are metal, except for the pulleys (the actual wheels) are plastic. The rope, hooks and strap seem good quality.
They, of course, tell you not to use it over a car (I am sure their lawyers added that.) So once I lift the kayak up I add a set of straps for redundancy protection, since I actually park under it. I would have done that even if their instructions had not said anything. I also tie the rope off so I am not depending on the brake mechanism.
So far I am pleased with it, but I have not had it very long.
Here’s my simple, inexpensive A-Frame kayak rack. It holds 4-6 boats, depending on their size and the dimensions can be adjusted as necessary.
https://briannystrom.com/kayaking/tutorials/a-simple-a-frame-kayak-storage-rack/
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Man, wish I had that size garage, and “love” the looks of the mini camper. Who made that?
BOB
I’m going to hop in with a related storage question:
For those that store outside, do you wrap the boat individually in a tarp or made-for-the purpose cover, or just throw a tarp over the entire rack/storage device?
Wondering if one method or the other is better in terms of protection, potential mold build up etc. Back in the day I used to wrap each boat individually in blue tarp material, like wrapping a body…but I really didn’t put much thought into it as to whether leaving it more open to air circulation (put tarp over rack, like in Bryan’s picture) would be better.
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That’s a T@B 320 S Boondock by NuCamp. Perfect for the two of us. Small enough to get it into the campsites on the water that we like.
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I put the tarp over all my boats. We stay fairly wet here and I want some air space to prevent mold .
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I have a Delta 12.10 and this will be my first winter storing it. It’s mounted sideways on hooks on the wall of my garage. The garage is not heated, and we get temps down to -40’s in the winter. Also, about 2’ of the bow end of the hull is in front of a window. It doesn’t get a lot of direct sun on the west side of the garage but would get a bit in the afternoon.
I have the original, sort of metallic bubble wrap that the kayak was shipped to the store in, and I’m wondering if there would be any benefit to wrapping the kayak in that for the winter?
I thought it might help even out the temp between the hull portion in front of the window and the rest, and might help slow down the extreme temperature swings we get. From -40 F on day, it could be 0 F the next day, etc.
