Share Your Innovations

[Salty Dog]

Thanks for the compliments!

If you want to be an ultralight freak and drill small holes into all your gear like me....use brad point drill bits. It makes clean holes and won't tear through or crack any types of plastic or PVC.

[JKay]

OK, I've been shamelessly stealing some of these great ideas from some of you sharp West Coast guys. Time for me to try to contribute something.

Here's a rolling rack project that I did about three years ago and posted on a few other sites. Some changes that I've made since then:

I made slings for all three bunks. I keep a Revo, Kaskazi DII and Ocean Kayak P-13 on this rack. All three kayaks are kept hull down in the slings. I know some folks advised hull up on the bunks, but I've never had a single issue with oil canning and it's much more convenient this way. Anyone hanging a kayak from a hoist would have a similar arrangement. The other boats are relegated to an A-frame rack on the side yard.

Here's a day project that might help free up some floor space in the garage. Good for burning a snowy day! We have a single car garage and were constantly stumbling over both the kayaks. I didn't really want to store them outside; we live in NJ...I didn't want these kayaks boosted

I wanted a rack that could hold up to 3 kayaks, but be able to get them all out of the way if needed. I found some other similar designs on the web, but adapted some of the better features to make something that would work best for me. A trip to the Home Depot got me the wood, hardware and misc supplies needed.

Overall outside dimensions are 72" x 39". The inside width dimensions were dictated by the fattest boat (OK Malibu 2XL).

I wanted to be able to slide the kayaks onto the crosspieces or bunks, so I used black foam pipe insulation and covered them with indoor/outdoor carpet. I wrapped the carpet around the top and sides and secured it to the bottom of the 2x4's with staples all the way across. You'll need a staple gun for this.





The OK sits directly on the bunks. I don't really worry about creating permanent dents in the bottom of this boat. They're built like tanks and because of the bottom design, not likely to get damaged. I was a little more concerned about storing the Revo in the same fashion. I decided to create a sling. I bought some 4" wide winch strap material from online. I doubled over the material on the one side and screwed it to the 2x4 using fender washers and screws. You can easily poke holes in the material using a pencil soldering iron. On the other side I installed a d-ring and secured it using a small bolt, nut and lock washer. This side gets hung on the hooks. When I want to use the boat, I unhook both D-rings from the hooks, ease the boat onto the bunks, and slide the Revo out.



I used these corner brackets that I picked up at HD to secure all the cross piece bunks to the uprights and horizontal long pieces. They save a bunch of time and worked out pretty well.



I got some heavy duty rolling casters from Harbor Freight. I made sure that they had real ball bearings and could handle quite a bit of weight. I screwed in short pieces of 2x4's to the bottom so that I could get some long screws into the bottom to mount the wheels on.



I've had the rack in use for several months and it's working out great for us. When I want to get something off the shelf in back of it, it's fairly easy to roll it out of the way. I can roll it right out into the driveway if I want to clean the garage. Make sure that you have some wheel chocks ready. You don't want to be chasing your rack and yaks down the driveway.

Sorry for the varying size of the pictures. Couldn't for the life of me figure out how to get the first shot the same size as some of the others.

[DanaPT]

nice rack. Any pictures of fish?

In all seriousness hope all is going well for you and your neighbors.

[SABA]

How about a solar Battery charger straped to the deck!! So we can keep charged our 12 volt for longer trips. Also you I phone users to. My girl saw this at Cost Co and wants to use it.

http://www.goalzero.com/

Maybe it will help Cheers Saba

[Baja_Traveler]

Originally Posted by SABA

How about a solar Battery charger straped to the deck!! So we can keep charged our 12 volt for longer trips. Also you I phone users to. My girl saw this at Cost Co and wants to use it.

http://www.goalzero.com/

Maybe it will help Cheers Saba

I have a 30 watt flexible panel intended for RV's that I put on the front hatch of my Scupper Pro for extended Baja trips. It connected direct to the finder/bait tank battery to keep it charged. Havent decided yet if I'll set it up on the new PA though - I went the Aussie way and put in a manual whale pump for the bait tank this time, and can charge the finder battery in the truck when it needs it...

[MrPatrick]

Please show the whale pump installation. I'm very interested in that.

[Baja_Traveler]

Originally Posted by MrPatrick

Please show the whale pump installation. I'm very interested in that.

Here's a few pics of the whale pump install. Its a Whale Urchin from West Marine with 3/4" flex hose from the same source. A piece of 3/4" pvc pipe goes through the scupper hole to a 3/4" street elbow from Home Depot. The pump is easy to reach from the seat and pumps quite a bit of water with each stroke, so 3-4 pumps every 10-15 minutes should keep bait nice and healthy.

[Pugz]

Originally Posted by Salty Dog

Thanks for the compliments!

If you want to be an ultralight freak and drill small holes into all your gear like me....use brad point drill bits. It makes clean holes and won't tear through or crack any types of plastic or PVC.

Simple design I like it.

In the downhill mountain bike race scene we call these speed holes.