: That was one of the reasons for the design. A cart available here
: commercially was very poor in that sense - long legs and short cradle
: (fore & aft) for the kayak to sit on. They had to "beef-up"
: the strap fastenings as they were breaking - that should have sent a
: warning to the designers.

i had the same reaction to the original maroske cart. i see the legs are way shorter now. he used stainless for everything.

some compaction patter: (actual dimensions will vary according to the yak and the wheel size, t size etc)

axle - make out of 1/2 x 20 in alum tube with 4in of 1/4-3/8 solid steel axle glued 2 in in ea end so 2in stick out. loa 24in.drill ends for R clips or whatever.

Top bar of T- make each out of 1 pc of 14in x 5/8in al tube. HOWEVER the T fittings are for 3/4 inch tubing and so 2 lenghts of about 2in long x 3/4in tubing is glued inside the end of each T. then the 14in long top bar will slide inside that. and you have a reinforce connectin also.

Leg- make each leg out of say 8 in long (maybe too long, less is stronger, has to be about 2in longer than the radius of the wheels) of 3/4in tubing. Heavily consider filling the bottom of each leg before drilling for the axle. THen drill vertically thru the ctr bottom up. same drill size as the axle. this allows packing.

then to pack

take off both R fittings off axle. slide on the 2 top bars. on top of that, slide on the 2 Ts w/ the spacers inside. on the outboard of each T, slide on the legs w/ the filled bottoms to the outside. ONly a tiny bit of 1/4 steel axled protrudes and then clip on each R fitting. Wind the webbing around along everything so one complete padded tube that say doesn't rattle around and scratch the wood, huh?

the whole assembly is 3/4in round and only 24 inches long-and padded. plus the wheels. cant really get more minimal than that.

for a stronger cart jus up each diameter by 1/8 inch. the whole thing is now only 7/8in round and 24in long. big deal. so make it real strong and go to 1in - whats to lose?

and every moment joint is reinforce except the top of the leg. assuming the t is stong enough(usually they have thicker walls and the diam is greater), maybe something extra dribbles down inside say. another refinement to think about.

no reason why you couldnt have a few different sets of wheels to fit the packing,wt and anticipated use requirements.

-mick