I've always been an inventive sort of paddler making all sorts of things to make boating more interesting. Now, I've got this idea noodling around in my head that I've never seen done before and I'd like to solicit some feedback before I get the tools out..

I've got 2 Royalex canoes along with 3 wood and 5 plastic kayaks and carrying very many at a time has become a challenge. I can get 3 kayaks on the roof racks on my truck using side load carriers but as soon as I want to take a canoe too, I'm challenged for space. I've got a Magneta trailer on order and am equipping it with 78" Yakima bars so I can use my current accessories and am looking forward to no longer lifting boats on top of my truck.

So, here's the radical idea.... I'm considering making some custom side load carriers that will allow me to carry the canoes on their side rather than on the gunnels. The canoes are 33" and 35" wide but only 19" deep so theoretically, I can cut the rack bar requirement from 68" (side by side) to under 40" if they were on their sides (hull to hull) in cradles. If the cradles were situated under the thwarts, I would think the canoes would be fine structurally. If this scheme were to work, I'd still have room for two kayaks on their sides in cradles.

I made 3 sets of custom cradles for my wood boats this past winter from 1/16" oak veneer laminated in 5 strips to conform to rhe hull shape. At 5/16" thick, 4" wide and glued and screwed to laminated plywood mounts, they worked beautifully to carry my kayaks on a 700 mile trip a few weeks ago. I've never seen such a setup for a canoe but seems like it would work just fine if the cradles conformed to the shape of the canoe.

How about sharing thoughts of the pro's and con's before I start the dust flying......

Bob Beaullieu