I have 3 sea kayaks an am trying to find a solution for storing them outside, but out of the weather. I do not have a garage to keep them out of the weather, but want to take care of them. My space is limited and need to stack them while keeping them from touching one another. Has anyone designed a rack for this problem?
Capt. Will
Outdoor storage idea
I have a fence in a side yard, I hang my two sea kayaks with wide nylon straps that attached to carabiners. The carabiners are easy to lift up and hook onto bolts. The kayaks are locked with a heavy steel cable to cement blocks in the ground. I have a hanging cover made from heavy duty UV proof boat tarps tacked to a wood stringer, its very fast to attach the stringer with the cover draped down, and secure it with nylon tie-downs. My side yard is protected with a high locked gate and my neighbors two psyco-vicious dogs, probably more secure than stored in my garage.
yep
It doesn’t keep them out of the weather yet, but will with the addition of a tarp. They’re in shade most of the day just because of positioning.
Anyway, it’s four posts. I used 4x4 posts and notched out space for three 2x6 spars to run from front to back to make two sides. I made it ten feet long. 2x4 would do the job, but I had 2x6, so went with that.
I used 2x4 in two places, slightly below the 2x6’s to attach the sides into a box that’s ten feet long, just under four feet wide, and about five feet tall.
In each of the 2x6 spars, I drilled holes large enough for 3/4" galvanized steel pipes to fit through. The pipes are long enough to allow the threaded ends to come almost entirely through the 2x6’s. I bought some 4" PVC pipe and cut it so that it would fit inside the 2x6 spars, with about 1/2" to spare on either side. I slid the galvanized steel pipe through the PVC pipe when inserting the galvanized steel pipe, so that the PVC pipe was around the steel pipe, giving me a very sturdy, smoothly functioning roller. The galvanized pipes are held in place by end caps. I did three such pipes on each of the three sets of spars. This contraption holds three boats very firmly. I did have to use some small corner braces to add lateral strength.
If I buy more boats, I’ll be able to attach webbing or add arms to hold up to four more kayaks (two per side). I haven’t attached the tarp yet, but figure that with either some foam noodle or tennis ball edge softeners on the posts, just some screw hooks and grommets should do the job.
E-mail me if you want me to send you some pictures. It was pretty cheap to build. The most expensive part was the end caps to hold the galvanized pipes in place. The whole thing could be built with galvanized pipe (check out boat display racks at Galyan’s), but that would add to the expense over the use of pressure treated wood.
- Big D
Simple A-frame rack
You can see the rack I built for my back yard in my Kayak Storage Rack album on Webshots at:
http://community.webshots.com/user/brian_nystrom
It’s on the second page of albums.
If you don’t need that much capacity, it’s a very simple matter to scale it down by using shorter legs. Although I don’t show it there, I have the rack and boats covered with a tarp now. We got 5" of snow last night and the boats stayed safe and dry.
Dumpster find
A local grocery store was going to toss it out:
http://community.webshots.com/photo/24973495/102506769sCxTpD
It stands in a corner that never sees sun.
Yes
I made a simple wood rack out of some scrap 2x4’s I had lying around. I made it 10 feet long by 4 feet wide and store 3 kayaks on it on their sides. The whole shebang fits in small niche in my back yard and is covered with a tarp. Keeps the boats protected from the elements.
I don’t need to post a picture now
That’s pretty much exactly what I built, except instead of shelves, mine has the rollers I described.
Nice boats.
- Big D
Great roller idea
I’m gonna try it, thanks. I’ve been using pool noodles as rollers, but they migrate every time there’s a windstorm.
WILL-DOESN’T MATTER IF THEY’RE SEA
and D or Z kayaks…
I, too, built a back yard rack -basically a diagonally-braced L when viewed from the side, with 2 arms and a base (the bottom of the “L”). The arms hold 2 kayaks up on the rack, and the bottom -a 2 x 12 -hold 4 yaks lined up spoon fashion. You can cover the whole mess with a tarp or black HD plastic and keep them out of the weather.
See pics at
http://www.topkayaker.net/CGI-BIN/yakalbum/cgi-bin/album.pl?album=Misc.%20Member%20Photos;photo_width=auto;photo_height=auto
A-frame, L-frame, vertical box, you name it -there’s a method to our kayaking madness! At any rate, it keeps our boats organized and out of the way, and possibly protected if need be, so after winter, we have great boats to get back out there and
Paddle On!
-Frank in Miami