Kayak storage racks

Follow-up to the follow-up:

Turned out that I could not move my boat in and out by myself without risk of screwing up my back and hip. (This was with the Jay rack,) With my husband’s boat on the top level, I just could not position myself to lift my boat over the J hook ends. And even if ergonomics had not been horrible, my boat would have bumped up on the lower edge of his below the height required to lift mine out of the hooks. The reason why it was doable with TWO
of us lifting the boat out was that each person on each end of the boat could lift and swivel the boat to hulldown position before bringing it over the J ends. This was impossible with just me lifting it.

Next, I looked at the specs for the Deluxe Pivoting rack and asked some questions of the very helpful Suspenz rep. It looked like the Deluxe would work, so I ordered one set of those. I installed them today on the lower tier and tested everything. WHEW, this arrangement will work.

The pivoting arms worked perfectly. Another real advantage of the more-expensive Deluxe rack vs the Jay rack is that the Deluxe offers more adjustments. My Pilgrim Expedition sits in a much better spot than it did with the Jay rack, because the pivoting pieces slide closer to the rack frame to allow better strap suspension angles for shallower boats.

If storage space were not an issue, I would prefer to leave my boat flat on foam blocks on the floor. Those are easier to slide the boat on and off of, but it was time to get my husband’s kayak out of the living room so I had to get a system with upper and lower “bunks.”

The system sits stably even when I put on or take off the lower kayak with the top one in place. Someone did their homework when designing these!

Thanks for reporting back! Often forgotten that things can work differently for a small person’s boat.

Nice to hear that you’ve found a system that works for you pikabike.