Carrying o the roof?

by Orbin13 Wed Mar 04, 2020 7:09 pm

Hello
My son races kayaks all over the south of England and his clubs van/trailer is out of action this season. As many of his races are over a whole weekend and a good 2 hours away we usually camp in our Trident. Now however I need to take his boat which I have only ever carried on our car.

Has anyone got any experience or advice on carrying anything on the roof rails of a trident?

His boat is 8kg and nearly 5m long usually sitting on a 'V-Bar' rack clamped to the roof rails.

Many thanks
allthumbz

by Roopert Wed Mar 04, 2020 8:27 pm

Orbin13 wrote:
His boat is 8kg

I guess there's a typo in there? The definitive answer as to whether the roof is designed to take the weight is probably only going to come by phoning A/S and asking them.

But at a more practical level, isn't it going to be an utter pain getting something like that up onto a roof that's around 2.5m up without scraping it along the sides? You can get clever roof racks that allow you to slide the canoe up the side and onto the roof but they are expensive - I would have thought that either buying or hiring a canoe trailer would be a more practical solution?

I should add that of course it depends to a degree on your (and your son's) strength and physique. I can recall trying to help a friend put his van spare wheel onto a van roofrack. I found it extremely difficult - but he didn't!

by Orbin13 Thu Mar 05, 2020 7:53 pm

haha, yes thanks for spotting that, should be 'on'.....
Thanks for the thought, getting it up there will be OK with the 2 of us, I just wasn't too sure about the length of the boat vs the slightly stubby rails on the roof of the trident.
Cheers

by Roopert Thu Mar 05, 2020 11:01 pm

Ah ok - so it really does weigh 8kg? I doubt anything that weighs that little should be an issue at all. I didn't realise they made kayaks that light, but technology is a wonderful thing.

The rails only extend about halfway to the front, so I guess you'll have to support it at the front and strap it to something, but I don't know what. If you only strap it where the rails are, it's going to try to take off, I would think? Otherwise the leverage from the wind load at the front is going to present a pretty high load at the back, which I doubt the rails are designed for.

by Orbin13 Fri Mar 06, 2020 4:48 pm

Yes surprisingly light!

That was also my concern, the unsupported nose. Good idea about securing the front. There is a towing eye on the front bumper I can use.

Thanks for the thoughts! up!

by kaspian Fri Mar 06, 2020 8:11 pm

Hi Orbin , I have over the years transported various sea Kayaks on the roof of several different vehicles . The kayaks were all around 17-18 ft and from 17kg upwards. An 8 kg boat will definitely by carbon fibre composite and although immensely strong in one respect they are very fragile in another. I used a length of galvanized UNISTRUT 42 x 42 mm from an electrical wholesalers around 3-4m length. This I fixed by bolting to the roofrack and then using the special nuts available that slot into the channel allowing fixing at any point, fixed the kayak supports at the proper distance apart to the unistrut. This way the stress is not concentrated over a relatively short area of the hull with a large overhang acting as a lever on the front. The unistrut acts as a supporting 'splint'
I always tied the bow and stern to the towing eyes on the vehicle front and back as extra insurance. The screw in type towing eyes stick out a little stopping the forward ties rubbing your paintwork of the bumper. 40 or 50mm wide cam buckle straps will tie the kayak down securely without exerting undue stress on the hull. Never had any issues in some pretty horrendous conditions as we were not fair weather paddlers!

by Orbin13 Sat Mar 07, 2020 7:18 pm

Thanks kaspian, yes it is a composite built boat for marathon and sprint racing so very rigid and only 8 - 11kg. The concern, as you have both mentioned, would be the leverage from the length. Good advice and I will defiantly use the towing eyes to anchor the boat.

Good to know you didn't have any horrendous tales about losing boats on motorways or anything like that!

Cheers
Robin:up!:

Carrying o the roof?

Carrying o the roof?

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