question about cartopping on modern cars.

[Anders]

Hi everyone.

How do you tie down a boat on a modern car?

I have an 25 year young Mercedes 190D. A rock solid German tank that never gives problems and which is very comfortable and cheap to drive. BUT, Its a 4 door sedan and I really would like an Estate(Stationwagon) Besides, its pretty slow.

So I´ve been looking at more modern cars. But they dont seem to be very easy to use when it comes to cartopping. I like to have lines going from the bow and down to both sides of the car and on a sedan, I tie down in the rear as well. This way, the boat is completely stable and wont move.
On the Mercedes, thats easy, its a metal car and it has real bumpers, so you can easily find places for the lines.
But modern cars are all plastic and they have their bumpers so incorporated with the rest of the cars that I cant se how you can tie down the boat.

So tell me your experiences.

[Jeremy]

I've faced the same challenge with new cars being the "wrong shape" to take a long roof load (in my case it was microlight wings, that are around 18ft long when folded and bagged).  The 4 x 4 I had was great, as it had a long roof, for good support, I could use the rear mounted spare wheel as an aft tie down point and it had a pair of towing eyes fitted under the front bumper that made tying the front end down easy.

With my last couple of cars (both Toyota Prius') I've switched to using an inflatable Handirack (a truly excellent bit of kit, see here: http://www.handiworld.com/HandiRack) rather than roof bars but was faced with the front and rear tie down problem, particularly the front, as I always like to make sure that's well tied down.  The rear one I could sort by using the bike rack carrier I have bolted under the car (looks like a tow bar fitting) but the front tie down presented a bigger problem.  There is an emergency screw-in towing eye that can be fitted, but a rope attached to it risks damaging the paintwork.  The answer was to use two short  (around 4" long)lengths of 1" wide webbing, of the sort that tie down straps are made, melt holes through either end using a soldering iron and then making these into loops and bolting them to handy bolts just under the edges of the bonnet (there are bolts that hold the front wings in the bonnet side gutters on most cars).  These webbing loops can be left tucked inside the bonnet when not needed, but can also easily be fed out through the bonnet side gap to give a pair of front tie down points that won't damage the paintwork.  It's a neat idea that seem to work well.  I shall be trying it with a boat when taking my new boat to Beale Park, so I hope it works as well for that as it does for microlight wings.

Jeremy

[Port-Na-Storm]

Hi
When I first started carrying my 16ft Polythene Pam on the Roof of my much shorter A Class I tried to tie her down at both ends. The ends of the lines are bungee hooked onto the plastic bumpers and probably weren't doing much good other than psychological. So I bought a couple of decent tie down straps and did away with the ropes at each end.

She was steady as a rock at 70mph.





My current car is longer but I still only tie the canoe down at the middle.  There is a strip of timber attached to the roof bars with slots which correspond to the rub rails under the canoe, this stops it trying to turn or slide sideways.  Still steady as a rock at 75-80mph but the trailer does tend to bounce a bit.  

[Anders]

Thanks both of you.

I dont know, I might try driving without tying the boat down front and back, but it doesnt seem right.

Jeremy, when you have tried your system with a boat, please make a comment here and evt. with a photo. Seems like a good way of doing things.

[Paul H (admin)]

In my younger days I have driven at warp factor 9 with windsurf boards held down with 2 straps on the roof rack... absolutely rock steady.

Back then cars had gutters and strong roof rack clamps. These days roof racks tend to have weaker mounting points....so I have a D-shackle attached to a gap in the engine subframe; a line can run around the bumper up to the canoe/boat.

BTW forward mounting points are very useful if you bring home thin ply on a roof rack.

-Paul

[gmatkin]

Woo careful! I think I remember correctly that the speed limit for trailers is 60mph. Gav

--- On Mon, 25/4/11, Port-Na-Storm [via UK HBBR Forum] <[hidden email]> wrote:

From: Port-Na-Storm [via UK HBBR Forum] <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: question about cartopping on modern cars.
To: "gmatkin" <[hidden email]>
Date: Monday, 25 April, 2011, 16:20

Hi
When I first started carrying my 16ft Polythene Pam on the Roof of my much shorter A Class I tried to tie her down at both ends. The ends of the lines are bungee hooked onto the plastic bumpers and probably weren't doing much good other than psychological. So I bought a couple of decent tie down straps and did away with the ropes at each end.

She was steady as a rock at 70mph.





My current car is longer but I still only tie the canoe down at the middle.  There is a strip of timber attached to the roof bars with slots which correspond to the rub rails under the canoe, this stops it trying to turn or slide sideways.  Still steady as a rock at 75-80mph but the trailer does tend to bounce a bit.  

---

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