By Rolf Kraiker

Bio

Rolf is a highly qualified canoe instructor who’s guided many extensive trips in the wilderness and a professional photographer with many years of experience.
https://rolfkraiker.com/
Email: rolfkraiker@gmail.com

Thanks
Rolf is supported by the H2O Canoe Company in Ontario, Canada.
https://h2ocanoe.com

Transporting your canoe

There are many different ways to put a canoe on the roof of a vehicle to transport it, and many are quite safe, but travel down any road that leads to popular paddling destinations, and you are probably going to see some very questionable methods being used to secure a canoe for transport.

Bow lines tied to windshield wipers exemplify “What were you thinking?” regarding things you should not be doing. Ideally, the canoe should be secured so it won’t move from side to side or front to back. Sudden acceleration or braking shouldn’t move the canoe. Changes in the wind, like a sudden crosswind or a large truck coming in the opposite direction, shouldn’t budge the canoe.

It’s best to start with a good set of roof racks securely attached to the vehicle. Alternatives like foam blocks on the gunnels can work in a pinch or if you’re stuck with a rental vehicle that doesn’t have roof racks, but those aren’t as bombproof as roof racks.

The ideal situation is to have solid roof racks with ropes or straps that go under the roof racks as close as possible to each side of the gunnel of the canoe, which prevents side-to-side movement. The canoe should be placed so the widest part is right in the middle between the cross bars of the roof racks.

Acceleration forces
On most tandem canoes, the centre thwart or yoke will define the middle of the canoe. The middle of a solo canoe will usually be just ahead of the seat. Because the canoe gets narrower as you move away from the middle, sudden acceleration forces the canoe back, which means it acts like a wedge and only gets tighter against the rope or strap. The same thing applies with sudden braking; the canoe tries to move forward, which only means it gets tighter in the strap or rope.

Appropriately done, that arrangement can work perfectly well for short distances, but to ensure the canoe won’t budge no matter what, you want to add lines to secure the bow and stern, and that gets a bit tricky, depending on the vehicle. In most situations, the canoe’s stern will overhang the back of the vehicle while the bow doesn’t go past the front of the vehicle. You want to have the bow and stern lines pulling in opposite directions. If the stern line pulls the canoe towards the front of the vehicle, the bow line must pull the canoe towards the back of the vehicle.

Sudden braking
The most convenient place to attach bowlines is somewhere under the front bumper. The problem there is that it means the canoe is being pulled forward at both the bow and the stern. If a situation arises that requires sudden braking, the only thing preventing the canoe from sliding forward is the strap or rope on the front crossbar of the roof racks.

Tying the bow lines at the very front of the vehicle also means the ropes or straps will be in contact with the paintwork, and vibration from the wind will cause abrasion and damage to the paint. If this is your only option, don’t attach the rope at the stern to the back of the canoe; tie it to a seat or thwart inside the canoe so that both ends of the attachment points pull in opposite directions.

Most often, on the front of a typical vehicle, the location of the front of a typical canoe will be resting somewhere between the windshield and the front grill. The best place to secure bowlines is as close as possible to the windshield, and there are several ways. Nylon webbing is your friend in this case.

Plastic tube
An available accessory is a plastic tube attached to a nylon web loop. You open the hood/bonnet of the vehicle, place the plastic part under each side, leaving the web loop outside, and then latch the hood/bonnet in place. That gives you a place to tie the bowline behind the front of the canoe, which will prevent it from sliding forward. Those work well, but they aren’t perfect. There is a chance they can slide around, and if, for some reason, there’s a sudden increase in tension, there’s a chance they might bend the metal of the hood/bonnet.

All my vehicles had bolts that fastened the bodywork fender to the car. A more secure way to attach a nylon web loop to the vehicle is to take out the bolt closest to the windshield, put the bolt through a hole in the web and then put the bolt back in place. That way, the web loop is always with the vehicle but can be folded inside to get it out of the way when not in use.

Make your own
You can purchase those loops, but making your own is easy. I use nylon webbing about one-inch wide and cut a length long enough to leave about three inches outside the anchor point when the webbing is folded in half. The easiest way to make a hole for the bolt is to use a soldering iron to melt it. That prevents the nylon from fraying. When travelling at highway speeds, the ropes on the canoe will continuously vibrate a bit and that gets transferred down to the webbing, which will rub away at the paintwork over time. To prevent that, I placed a rubber tube over the nylon web to protect the paint. An old bicycle inner tube will work well, but any soft rubber tube of the correct diameter will work.

The three most common ways to secure a canoe are ropes, cam straps or ratchet straps. I prefer rope but have used cam straps. Ratchet straps should be avoided as it’s too easy to put too much pressure on the canoe, which might cause damage. Cam straps can sometimes loosen if you travel in rain, as the water can make the nylon slippery. It’s best to tie off excess webbing just above the cam to ensure it won’t come undone. If you get a lot of wind noise when on the road from webbing straps, you can usually prevent that by putting a twist on the straps.

I prefer to use rope, but you need to be confident tying a bowline, a trucker’s hitch, and a half hitch. Make a loop at one end of the rope with the bowline and anchor that around the roof rack as close as possible to the gunnel. Toss the rope over the canoe and run the other end under the roof rack on the opposite side of the canoe. You should be able to tie a trucker’s hitch at the point where the bottom of the canoe turns into the side and have enough rope left over to go through the trucker’s hitch, back down to the roof rack and then wrap around once or twice before tying it off with the half hitch.

The trucker’s hitch acts like a pulley, and you can snug the canoe down tight with that. Wrapping some excess rope around the roof rack prevents sideways slipping. Tying the half hitch around the rope on both sides of the roof rack and pulling it tight will put more tension on the rope and make it even more secure. If there’s more rope left over after you tie off the half hitch, tuck the loose end under the section of rope above the knot, and that will keep it from flapping in the wind.

You can use one line at the back of the canoe to prevent it from sliding back, but the front of the canoe should have a rope going to both sides of the vehicle. It will be at the front, where it will be most prone to being affected by wind, and you don’t want it to shift.

Extra attention must be paid to securing the bow to prevent sideward swing. If you use a single rope to do both sides, one rope on each side can be more secure. If the canoe has a grab loop, a single rope securing the bow needs to have a knot on the grab loop. If the deck has a grab handle where you fasten the rope, you need to have a knot on either side of the grab handle.

Passing the rope through either the grab loop or the grab handle on the deck will let the canoe slip sideways in a sudden gust of wind. One knot on a grab loop is fine, but a single knot on a grab handle on the deck can still let the canoe swing the full width of the grab handle, and that might loosen the main ropes or straps holding the canoe on the roof rack so it’s essential to have a knot on each side of the grab handle when using just one rope.

Carrying more than one canoe
To carry more than one canoe, having the right crossbar length is essential. Most jurisdictions have a legal requirement that nothing extend past the width of a vehicle measured from the tip of one side mirror to the other. Square Thule-style bars and round Yakima-style bars are available in different lengths. If your vehicle is equipped with modern roof racks that have a slot for attaching accessories and you have some basic DIY skills, it’s easy to make an extension to carry more than one canoe. I make the extension from pressure-treated 2X4 lumber. Using ordinary nuts and bolts, I fashion a tab on the bolt that drops down into the roof rack slot and make a recess in the wood so that the nut and bolt don’t protrude beyond that wood.

With more experience, you gain confidence and might encounter situations where your expertise comes in handy. In order to arrange a shuttle to the start of a canoe trip, I once put five 16-foot canoes on the roof of a VW Jetta to leave as many vehicles as possible at the end of the trip. On the roof racks, the first two went upside down, side by side; the second pair went right side up on top of the first two, and the last one went upside down between the top pair. All of the canoes were tied down with a rope and travelled about 60 Km at highway speed to the start point of the trip without incident.

It is crucial to have boats secured firmly on top of a vehicle. The consequences of having one come off at highway speeds can result in some very tragic outcomes.