How bout placing the stern on a pillow. We had several TI’s that we car topped for many years. Yes when we tilt the boat up to put on the roof it sits on the rudder, we normally placed an old thick door entry rug under the stern, probably loaded our TI’s 500 times with no issues. However there is a trick to it. What we do is place the rug on the ground in the final position it will end up when the boat is tilted with the bow on the car. Once you know where that is pace it out so you can alway repeat next time, (ie.. 3 steps, 4steps, etc). Now place the stern of the boat on the rug, with the bow along side of the car, (boat at a angle). Then walk up to the bow and lift the bow over your head, (the boat literally balances on my head), I walk in hand over hand to get the bow higher than the vehicle, and I have a clear way to walk the bow over to the center of the truck or suv. Set the bow on the rear of the car, on our earlier vehicles we placed the bow in a rug that was laying on the roof. Now with the boat stable walk to the back of the boat and stradle the back of the boat. I then lift the back of the boat straight up, without allowing it to slide backwards. Once up you simply slide forward. You are never lifting more than half the weight of the boat, (with the TI thats a little over 50 lbs). I typically do it all myself, but if I do have a helper I have them hold the stern down and in position so it doesn’t slide around, then once tilted up I have the come up to the bow to keep it centered while I’m lifting the back. We have had tons of different kayaks, to be honest the easiest to load is the TI, because it’s much longer, (way less angle, (our TI’s were a little over 20 ft long)). I’m not a big guy 5’6” 230 lbs, and retired (older than dirt lol). Doing it all this way there is no dragging involved, ( the dragging in gravel and on concrete is what tears everything up). Yea when tilted up the boat is sitting on the rudder and trying to tilt the boat, just let it tilt. The rudders are pretty darn strong, it won’t break, I’ve been loading many different types of hobies over the last ten years or so with no issues, lol if I had to guess were talking 1500 plus lifts, (it adds up fast when your loading 3 kayaks on the roof pretty much every weekend year round, ( yep in swfl and the keys we go out year round). We tried many different kayak racks, we liked the reciever mounted T-bars the best. Even if your suv didn’t come with a hitch reciever from the factory, after market hitch reciever kits are only like a hundred bucks or so, and easily installed yourself with just common tools in about an hour. We travel a lot and have around 1/4million road miles with kayaks on the roof and camper in tow. I lost track of how many accidents we have passed where the kayaks were ripped off the roof, (especially in Florida). We now always attach bow and stern lines to the kayaks, (just sayin)
Hope this helps FE Note: I don’t know much about the compass, I was describing normal T&S rudders on most other models, and the TI rudder. If the compass rudder is different, never mind, ignore everything I said.
|