Car topping the Ultimate Tandem Island

In preperation for our upcoming vacation to Lake Hartwell GA this week with our camper in tow. I have to car top the Ultimate Tandem Island (the name of my boat).
Here is our Camper (pic taken at our last outing):


Now we are traveling all the way to Georgia so two vehicles is out of the question, so we have to car top the TI.
This is the current system I have:






Notice the 8 ft vinyl coated wood closet poles that I picked up at Home depot (they were free because they couldn't find the UPC code at the checkout (their problem not mine) I waited at the checkout for 15 minutes, they finally just said, go ahead and take them (free), because they couldn't figure it out (lol)... They are perfect to support the boat on the roof, nice and strong, and distribute the weight perfectly. The poles are just laid into the grooves under the boat after I put the boat up on the roof. Notice the dirt on the bottom, that is left over staining from my planing hull mod that was mounted on the boat for a couple three years, now removed to make the boat lighter (about 8-10 lbs) so I can get it up on the roof, nothin wrong with it, it was designed to be removable, I just won't need it up at lake Hartwell.



The boat is extra secure up there (doesn't budge at all), and should survive the trip nicely. I loaded the empty bare hull onto the Thule Aero bars. It was actually not hard to get up there by lifting half the hull at a time (about 50 lbs lifting). I loaded it all by myself.
I then put the AKA bars and AMA's onto the boat (as good a place as any to store them). Of course they will be removed before I take the boat down.
All my massive sails are stored between the hull and AMA's and tied in nicely so they don't blow around.

The orange ratcheting straps I got at Home depot a set of 4 were $13 bucks, they hold 1300 lbs ea. and everthing is strapped to the lifting lugs in the truck bed.
I have a cut up pool noodle under the bow to prevent it from bouncing, and a V strap on the bow to prevent sideways movement. On the bow I used rope instead of straps, because on our old setup the 1 inch wide bow straps would flutter and vibrate in the wind on the highway.
Once we get to our destination I will take the boat down, and throw the boat in the back of the pickup every day using our hitch extender (saves having to throw it on the roof).
The motors we will likely just store in the camper during the trip up there (they only weigh 27 lbs ea).

To the best of my knowledge, this is the only car toppable complex sailboat I know of, (complex meaning with massive sail sets (ie..spins, jibs, etc)). I would like to see someone do this with a 450 lb Windrider 17 ( lol).

We have never been to Lake Hartwell, from my understanding it is huge, and we should be able to cover quite a bit of it averaging 8-10 mph even if there is very little wind (we pretty much expect little to no natural wind up there during most of our stay), so we will need to make our own wind ( lol).

I just thought I would share our setup, in case anyone wants to do something similar.

Here is a pic of one of our old tow vehicles (we are now on our forth tow vehicle (all GM Denali's (we keep wearing the darn things out))).


This will likely be our setup if we want to just kayak inlets while up there.


And here is my typical local setup with the trailer (when we don't have to car top....way less time to rig), we live only a few minutes from the ocean.


I know of no more versatile boat that you can literally do everything you can think of with, 'One boat, that does it all', sure beats the three kayaks that we used to carry on the roof, way more versatile, and can be used in big water... yea we love our TI...




FE

You have a nice setup! You can do things with the TI you cant with anything else..

I wont car top mine this year but that option is nice (like your case of towing the travel trailer) and Im wondering what your process is of getting the main hull up on the rack?

The two images below show what I did in the past but I want to change this. That step ladder worked well for my back as I picked up the front of the hull in two steps and that worked nicely but what I want to change to is to lift the front of the hull up so that I place it on the back of the rack (I willl get rid of that "extension arm" - although it mostly worked OK). Once the front of the hull is resting on the back end of the rack, I would go the back of the hull and lift it then slide it forward onto the rack.

I think the sliding forward will be a lot easier if I have some sort of roller at the back of the rack. This will allow me to slide the boat forward without having to completely lift the back end to the final height - which I think will give me back trouble. If I can slide it forward on the roller still at an angle, the back of the hull will be easier to lift. I saw a picture of a roof rack with a roller like this and cant remember who it was but I think they were from Australia...

Walt:
I've been car topping when we have our camper in tow for about ten years now, I'm sure we have well over 200k miles with the crazy Hobie kayaks on the roof. Yea when we are local we are sure to use the trailer, which makes launching easy (under 15 minutes, if I don't putze around (I'm a putzer), drives my wife nuts).

What I did to get the boat on the roof is what I always do (even with our old vehicles), I empty the hull of everything (even the seats, and any water). I then center the back of the boat behind the car (in the center), I place down a small door entry rug (the kind you put on your front porch (yea I stole it from the front porch)). I then walk the front of the boat along side the car/truck so the bow is even with the back wheels (I put my scupper cart in the same place you have yours in the pic (make sure it's locked in)).
I then lift the bow of the boat and place it on my head (yea my head), I'm not a big guy at all (5'6.5" tall, (used to be over 5'9)), I'm in my mid 60's, and not very fit, and have a pretty bad back (why I'm now way shorter). I then walk backwards toward the back of the boat hand in hand lifting the bow of the boat far enough walking back toward the back of the boat till I can swing the bow onto the rearmost rack. I then center the boat on the rack, I then scootch the boat forward with the stern on the ground as far as I can (that scootching is the key to the operation). By scootching the boat forward on the ground Increasing the angle of the boat and getting closer to the balance point of the boat before lifting the stern makes the stern much easier to lift. Once I lift the stern, I grab onto my scupper cart axle (the scupper cart is still locked in the rearmost scupper holes), then just shove the boat forward as far as I need to (really easy to push with the scupper cart in place, you don't need a roller on the roof rack (though it might make things a little easier). Once the boat is in place I just slip in the 8 ft vinyl covered wooden curtain rods under the hull in the 11 inch center grooves. I then center the boat and put the AKA's and AMA's on (handy place to put them). Then I tie the whole works down with ratcheting cargo straps to the truck bed. I cut a big diameter pool noodle in half and shoved that into the grooves over the cab area, I then put a strap around my sails and the pool noodles to keep them from flopping around (the sails were shoved between the AMA's and the hull (one set on each side of the boat, (lol I have a lot of sails)). Make sure you put the mainsail in the bag with the bag opening pointing back, otherwise the dang bag fills with air on the highway, and becomes a giant marshmallow.
We don't cartop unless we really have to, not because it's hard to do (it's not that hard really, and doesn't take that long to get the hull on/off the roof. It's the rigging and getting everything back into the boat that takes all the time (like up to an hour with all my junk, especially from the parking lot at Higgs beach in Key West, or the parking lot at South Lido beach in Sarasota Fl, it's a really long walk to the water from the parking lots), then across deep soft sugar white sand (the worst crap ever to pull a kayak on a scupper cart thru)). I never walk the boat on the scupper cart with the AMA's installed, it's just too dang heavy and awkward for me, I always walk the AMA's down to the water separately (one in each hand), and install them at waters edge (saves a whole lot of stress). The TI hull itself is no more difficult to transport on a scupper cart than our old Oasis (actually a little easier IMO). Keep in mind we only use tandem yaks (our preference), all tandems are bigger and bulkier than singles, doesn't matter which brand, their all big and bulky, however it takes me less time to rig one tandem vs two complete sailing Hobie kayak single rigs, plus in a tandem I don't have to tow the wife 5 miles back to launch every time out ( lol).

She fake pedals (true story), we are peddling along like always in the tandem, I yell back are you peddling, 'YES', we go a little further, noticing no difference, are you peddling, 'YES OF COURSE', I stop peddling and the boat stops.
I don't mind in the least, I enjoy the company, but I do get to make fun of it.
Hope this helps
FE

Thats one badass little Solstice to pull that big camper!

Fusioneng, what campground are you in above?

Keith

_________________
2015 AI 2, 2014 Tandem

"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex ... It takes a touch of genius and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction." A. Einstein

"Less is more" Anon

Aero_70:
I've heard of people putting 327 v8's into those solstices, would love to do it, but the wife won't let me touch it. Would almost be like owning a Cobra roadster (my dream car). I used to have a RUF 911 Porsche ( http://ruf-automobile.de/en/), but my days of that stuff are done. I've been collecting sports cars all my life (expensive hobby).
Even though the Solstice lacks power, I like it more than anything else I've owned.
FE

Keith:
We were camping at Lake Manatee state park (off route 64 near Lakewood Ranch FL).
Here is a video of me on the huge lake.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFJJ6p0uq_E


First time there, we really had a nice time, nice and clean well maintained campground, we were there about a week. There is a nice boat ramp right near the campground, easy to launch. We loved the place.
My first time ever in a fresh water lake down here in Florida.

FE