Storing system for your Kayak and Gear

Storing your Kayak and Gear
A few months ago I embarked on a project to store my Kayak and Mirage Drives in my garage. The following was a list of requirements for me.
1 Safely store my Kayak so no harm would come to it.
2 Be able to load and unload ALONE without getting hurt.
3 Be able to remove car’s or jetski’s without moving Kayak.
4 Be able to store it in a READY TO GO state for quick trips to the water.
5 Keep time to no more than 5 min for unload or Load.
So I started with the idea of a rail system that can be seen in these photos. I started with galvanized fence top railing and heavy duty shelf brackets. After welding the 2 pieces of rail together I added drops from the shelf brackets to mount the rail to. The middle shelf bracket needed to be mounted upside down so I reinforced the welds on all 3 of them.
The rail is run at a slight angle and curve to maximize the height a distance allowed in my garage.




My first real challenge was the rear truck. It needed to be able to support the weight of the fully loaded Kayak as well as stay clear of the mounts from the brackets to the rail.



While the rear truck is used to slide the Kayak into and out of the garage all of the weight is supported by the sling attached to the gear driven motor with the blue pully. The remote allows me to raise and lower from the ground.




My next challenge was lowering both the Front and the Rear of the Kayak into the truck without hitting the items under it or hurting myself while lifting it into the bed.




I built a swing arm seen in the pictures below to aid in my load/unload. The swing arm is installed at an angle so as it rotates out of the garage it clears the door and decreases the amount I need to lift for release.
After Kayak is released from the swing arm I walk it to the front of the bed and lower the rear by releasing the winch on the rear truck.

Hey Frank. I was wondering how this system has worked out for you over time? In particular, have you noticed any significant warping of the hull from storing your kayak in this way? Everything I read say it is not good to store your yak right side up, especially loaded with gear. My gear set-up is going to make it impossible to store my yak upside down and very difficult to store it vertically on it's side or end so something like this would be great, as long as it would not cause damage to my kayak.

Also, I cant' really tell by the pics how the yak is connected to the hangers. How is that done?
Approximately how much gear(in lbs.) do you store in the kayak ?

I had to reinforce the weld on the pivot point that allows the kayak to extend out of the garage. Other than that its really been nice storing my yak in a "ready to go" mode.

None of the weight is on the eyelets so i have seen no warping.
The front is held with a carpeted piece of plywood that i cut to match the shape of the hull.
The back is held up by the red strap and blue rope on the pulley.

The cleats are used as safety lines during storage and the bearing truck is attached to the yak with a farm-n-fleet rope winch.

I store about 12 lbs of Stuff on or in the hull that never comes out of the boat.

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