Kayak Rack 21EC -The Result & Test Flight

[dloop]

The great folks here and on the c-brats site were kind enough to give me pointers along the way on how I might be able to carry a couple kayaks on my 21ec so I wanted to share what I ended up with.

There were several failed attempts before I reached this final solution. These kayaks are longer than some (17.5 feet) so that was a challenge. As were the support cables for the mast.

It might be hard to tell, but there are two kayaks in this picture, one is behind the other. (I was hoping this picture might qualify for a tugnuts home page photo but I guess not. 🙁 )

The arch was made for me out of 1 1/4 stainless by Railmakers NW. They were great!. I wanted it high enough to clear my head in the cockpit (I'm 6' 2") without having to duck beneath it.

I installed it myself. I had to take care to leave room for the for my Scotty downriggers mounts that I previously installed.

I had to remove the search light...temporarily.

So you might be wondering how this worked out. So was I 🙂 I was surely a bit nervous at first. Each kayak is about 50lbs. I was concerned about the weight up high, and how it would change our wind profile. So initially I tested this with just one kayak. To my delight, our 21ec didn't flip over. Emboldened, I added the second kayak and everything sill tested fine.

I realize some may still be skeptical, so let me also add that my wife and I just returned from a two week vacation in the northwest San Juan Islands. This was our rig for the trip and it was rock solid. We encountered mostly pleasant weather, but you know how big the wakes from those Bayliner motoryachts can be. Having our kayaks on this trip was wonderful. My wife and I had a sunset paddle all the way around Sucia island that we will never forget for its stunning beauty.

I should also add that our 21ec performed flawlessly. We had not a single issue the entire trip as we moved throughout the san juans.

The highlight of the trip was when we were jigging for salmon near Haro straight and a pod of ~40 Orcas took about an hour to pass by us. Some came very close and were probably bigger than our Ranger.

Thanks to everyone here and on c-brats.com for inspiring me to give this a try, and a special thanks to Ranger Tugs for making memories like this possible with your fine tugs.

dave

 

[dloop]

I feel I should add that we are very aware of the efforts to reduce stress on our whale populations and the "get off our tail" program. But to be clear this was a case of the whales finding us. Once we were surrounded there was not much we could do but stop fishing and take pictures until they all passed. I did turn off our sounder too. Not sure if they are bothered by that but I turned it off just in case. Motors were already off.

dave

 

[JohnH]

The rack is good-looking and appears to be very secure. Good design, and thanks for sharing. A question: 50 pounds is a non-trivial weight to put into place, especially dodging the mast-supporting wires and --even more important -- avoiding scratches on a wooden kayak. (I also build wooden kayaks and am reluctant to slide them across normal kayak racks.) What is your procedure for hoisting the kayaks into place?

 

[dloop]

Hi John,

Thanks for asking. To protect the wood kayaks from the support cables I slid a short section of water hose over each cable. You can see it here in this close-up.

It's not clear from the photos, but I'm using Yakima HullRaisers for supporting the kayaks on each side for a total of four. I tried using normal saddles but the kayaks are too wide to fit in the space between the mast and the support cables. The Hullraiser positions the kayaks diagonally allowing them to fit better by the cables. (lot's of trial and error).

On top of the cabin I added two stainless handrails (identical to the ones already used by Ranger). Each two are spaced perfectly to align with the HullRaiser mounting supports. You can somewhat see them here:

When we don't have the kayaks with us, these handrails look like they are meant to be there...and we've found them useful in that location just as handrails.

Here is a closeup of a stern Hullraiser. There is a 4 inch wide stainless plate on top of the arch. I needed to add a small spacer made from my wife's cutting board (that didn't go over well as you might imagine).

I agree that 50lbs is not trivial. We found it is best a two person job. Before we raise or lower them, we would temporarily disconnect the mast support cables. The kayak that is dockside is then quite easy to raise or lower with two folks. The other side is more difficult. I don't have a really good solution yet. A few places where we had the dock room we would just swing the boat around to get the other kayak dockside. Where we couldn't do that, I just manhandled it but it definitely stressed my back a bit.

hope this helps.

dave