We have all found ourselves in situations where we run short on space to transport our kayaking and fishing gear.
Trucks provide a solution to this problem, but they also have a limit to what they can carry.
This is exactly the situation that you face when you have to put more than one kayak on the back of your truck. The space looks too small to carry two kayaks on the back. However, there are some ways you can make this work.
Therefore, in this article, we would tell you how to transport two kayaks in a truck.
There are a few simple steps that you need to follow in order to get this job done.
Table of Contents
Step 1: Prepare the Truck Bed
Trucks normally have a lot of heavy accessories installed on them to make transport easy. However, to transport the kayaks you do not need any one of them. So, our first step would be to remove all the unnecessary accessories from the bed of the truck.
Next up, we would remove the tonneau cover and replace it with a rubber mat. The rubber mat protects both your bed and the kayaks from getting damage or scratches. Moreover, it would also protect the bed from all the water that will drip from the kayak on your way back.
Step 2: Loading the First Kayak
Once you have carried out all the preparation, it is time to load the kayak on the bed. In order to do so, you need to lower the tailgate. Bring the kayak near to the truck with the help of a trolley or ask your friend to help. Lift it from the front and pull it on the bed while keeping the hull side down.
In case you have a sliding bed extender you can load it by keeping the extender open. However, in this way, the kayak will overhang which is why you would have to make it extra secure. Moreover, you would have to hang red flags at the end of the kayak to make sure you don’t pose threat to other drivers.
You can carry the kayak with a tailgate up if you do not want to overhang it. Angle the one end of kayak up in the air supporting the back of the cabin. It will decrease the risk of other drivers banging into your kayak. Moreover, it will create a lot of space for the second kayak. However, this technique is useful only if both kayaks are shorter than 10 feet.
Step 3: Loading of Second Kayak
The technique of loading the second kayak depends on the technique that you have used to load the first kayak. If you have placed the first kayak on its bottom and have not angled up its one side, you would have to put the second kayak with the one wall of the truck resting it on its one side. This technique is useful if you have one bigger kayak and the other one is shorter.
However, if you have angled the first kayak up on its side you would have plenty of space to place the second kayak. You can simply place that in the middle of the bed and can even close the tailgate. This technique is applicable when both the kayaks have a length of fewer than 10 feet.
However, if both of the kayaks have lengths greater than 10 feet you would have to follow another technique. This involves placing the second kayak over the first kayak. To prevent the damage and scratches on both kayaks you cannot just put it right over the first kayak.
Therefore, in order to do that, you would have to get two wooden logs in a square or rectangular shape. The sizes of these logs need to be at least three inches more than the maximum width of both kayaks. Cover each log with suitable cloth or rubber preferably the ones that are slip-resistant.
Step 4: Securing Both Kayaks
In order to make sure that the kayaks do not slide away you have to secure them properly. This is where a lot of people mess up. A lot of people use five or six straps to secure the kayaks, which is not the right way. When you use multiple straps, the strengths of these straps do not get distributed evenly. Some of the straps would have to provide more strength than the other which can break them.
Tie the one end of this strap with the front or back anchoring point on the side of the truck. Pass that strap over both kayaks and follow it by passing it under the two kayaks. In order to do that you would have to ask help from your friend to lift both kayaks. Repeat this process until you think both of the kayaks have been securely tied together.
Now tie the other end of the straps with the back-anchoring point if you have started from the front. In case you started from the back, tie it with the front anchoring point. However, make sure the first end of the strap is tied to the opposite side of the truck where the second end is tied.
Conclusion:
There you go! You are ready to go on a kayaking adventure with your friend. Transporting a single kayak is a task on its own, however, when you have to transport two kayaks, it makes the matter doubly complex.
In essence, there are a lot of ways to carry two kayaks on a truck. However, the one explained here is the simplest and convenient of all on how to transport two kayaks in a truck.
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