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How To Build A Kayak Cart At the far shore the kayak still needs to get the rest of the way to work. I've heard of keeping a car at each shore which would be useful if your work is farther than walking distance from the beach. You could also find a safe tie-up, leave the kayak and take the bus. But I enjoy the funny looks I get when I put the kayak on a collapsible cart and roll it up the trail and down the road to work.
How To Build A Homemade Kayak Cart
Chesapeake Light Craft has plans for making a kayak cart so I started with those. Not finding good brackets I used wood, screws, fiberglass cloth, epoxy and bits of pipe to improvise. (If you recently built a Chesapeake kit you'll have some of those supplies left over and the uncontrollable desire to use them.) I used the fiberglass cloth and the bits of pipe to reinforce the axle holes drilled into the vertical wooden supports. I notched the wooden rails and threaded the straps between the wooden rails and the pipe insulation that was used for padding. The axles are hitch pins I found at a local John Deere dealer that fit the wheels I picked up at Hardware Sales, our local hardware wonderland.
The kayak cart I built is pretty ugly but seems to be strong and relatively light. Since the padded wooden rails pivot it fits easily in the back hatch of the CLC LT 17 when disassembled.
Here I have hauled the kayak, the cart and the gear up from the beach onto the trail. (The wheels roll well enough on the rocky beach but since the winter storms I can no longer maneuver around the layers of driftwood logs.) To load the kayak onto the cart, I set the cart next to the cockpit of the kayak, support the cart with the paddle float, point the cart toward the stern of the kayak, then lift the bow and rest the kayak on the cart. I taped a little neoprene to the stern keel with electrical tape so the kayak can pivot safely on the rocky beach or path.
The wheels are large enough to roll up the beach through the mix of sand and rock found at Little Squalicum. As I think about it, the whole kayak cart is built around the wheels. You want something big and wide enough to roll through the sand and over the rocks while supporting about 40 pounds per wheel. After maneuvering around the driftwood (often enlisting the help of a passing beachcomber) or hauling the kayak, cart and gear up to the path, I roll the kayak up the gravel trail and down the road to my home away from home, Bellingham Technical College.
Update: After hauling my kayak up the beach on my cart for a couple of years the wood-epoxy-fiberglass structure is still holding up! I do worry about snapping something when it jams against a rock on the beach so I am slow and gentle. Friends have used kayak carts they like from PaddleCart and Paddleboy and recommend them. I'm building a Pax 18 which has very limited storage and small hatches so I'm planning to build or buy something small and simple like the Kayak Kaddy end cart by Hardy. It is pretty much an axle with a v-shaped support. The whole thing gets strapped to the kayak instead of lowering the kayak onto the cart. I'll post more when I get that far.
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