Hey to all, I just moved down to Bluffton/Hilton Head area from the midlands area where I fished for smallmouth, largemouth ,stripers, and trout. I left a 30’by 40’ shop to a 2 car garage. We have a 135 ride, a 12 tarpon and a 10 tarpon. I have been searching the web for storage ideas, I am thinking about a pulley ceiling system to store them. What do you guys use or recommend? Thanks!
If your garage doors will be an issue with doing the overhead thing - consider some j-racks on the wall. You could even fashion a rack with wheels, you can roll in and out of the garage, too.
BTW Welcome to the Lowcountry!
Lowcountry Kayak Anglers - http://www.lowcountrykayakanglers.com
I store my kayaks in a variety of ways, but the one that might be most useful to you is using 12’ long tie down straps (the non-ratching type) and wood thread closed eye screw hooks in the rafters.
It uses a similar concept to the pulley system but without all the added ropes and tie offs strung about the garage. It’s cheap and it works- you can get everything you need at Harbor Freight for about $10 or less.
I screw the eye hooks on opposite sides of the rafter and place the hooks of the tie down strap in each one, forming a big loop. I can lift the end of a boat in one side, letting it hang there, while slipping the other loop over the other end. Then I pull the straps up individually until I get it as high as possible to the ceiling. You could also just bolt the strap flat against the rafter or ceiling joist with lag bolts. The only disadvantage of this system over the pulley type, is that to lower the straps, you have to be able to reach the releases. If you have a tall ceiling (I don’t in my boat shed) you would need a ladder or broomstick to reach it.
If you look closely at the background of this crappy cell phone shot, you can see what I’m talking about in this pic. BTW: The boat can hang sideways, as seen here, right side up, or even upside down. As a bonus you can angle it toward the plug to drain your boat of the last bit of water that never wants to come out.
Another way I store my SOTs is vertically using the scupper holes. If you have stackable boats or boats with common scupper sizes, you can store multiple boats this way on one long mount.
I use galvanized plumbing 4 hole flanges (1"-1 1/2" depending on scupper hole size) bolted to the wall with pipe threaded into the flange. Two pipes works perfect- any more and it would be difficult to line them all up when hanging the kayak.
Space the mounting to fit the most convenient scupper holes for hanging. I use the footwell scuppers because when the boat is vertical, they are at eye height. When hanging, the bottom of my boat is just an inch from the floor, so you just have to lift it up briefly when sliding it onto the pipes. Drill a hole completely through the end of the pipe and slip a pin or lock through the hole to keep it from falling off if someone bumps into it.
Southern Ride, considering the length and weight of your boats, you would need a tall ceiling and firm anchoring on the wall -so this might not the best way to store them in your case- but maybe so…
Though I haven’t done it personally, you could also use this technique for cheap horizontal wall mounting that takes up very little space. The pipes just need to be long enough to stick out a reasonable amount through the scupper holes.
Lastly, when no boat is on the mount, it’s a good idea to flag it somehow. It’s amazing how a pipe sticking out from the wall becomes invisible when you aren’t expecting it to be there! 