Today I installed a ceiling mounted kayak hoist in the garage to get it out of the way and gain floor space when not in use. We have 2 Kayaks. I have the Feelfree Moken 10 Light in desert camo (well build and great fittings for upgrades/accessories) and my wife has the Perception Pescador 10 in red.
We like to take care of our stuff and don’t want to leave them outside in the elements, especially during the hot Texas Summers, so I started researching a while back for a storage solution that fit our needs.
The garage ceiling area over our vehicles in the garage was perfect (and the only place left!) in our previous home. I bought the CargoLoc Heavy Duty Garage Hoist a couple of years ago and, when I tried to hoist the kayak then, I couldn’t raise it high enough to clear over the garage door because the ceiling in the garage wasn’t high enough to yield the necessary clearance to accomplish this.
In our current home, at 10 ft. high, the ceiling in the garage is a foot higher than in our previous home, and just enough to hoist the kayak over the garage door with about 6 inches to play with. In my case, I still had to do a work-around the straps provided with the set to get all of the available clearance.
Now, my ceiling joists run left to right from the perspective of this photograph. That also presented a bit of a problem since most these systems have mounting brackets designed to be mounted in line with a joist. Well, that’s not what I wanted to do. Fortunately, the hardware allowed me to fasten the mounting brackets in line with 2 separate joists and simply turn the pulley mounting brackets 90 degrees to face each other and work properly.
Here’s an image of the mounting brackets installed on the ceiling. I used my Precision Stud Finder to find the exact location of the ceiling joists to screw the brackets right in the middle of the 2″ x 10″s and be safe. I then pre-drilled the pilot holes and the fastened the mounting bracket to the ceiling using the required lag bolts. The pulley brackets are mounted using the provided bolts and lock nuts.
Next, I tied the line ends to the pulley brackets, as instructed, and looped the line through the pulleys and the braking mechanism.
Here’s what it looked like after I was finished looping in the hoist line. Notice the loop hanging off the near end pulley bracket, which actually hold 2 pulleys while the far end pulley bracket holds only one. This hanging loop is used to pull and lift the cargo.
I laid out the 2 straps used to hoist the cargo under the kayak. These come with different loops to adjust the hook location given the size of the cargo.
I ran a quick test run up to about 4 feet off the ground to see how the system would hold. I didn’t like the potential of the straps slipping of the ends due to the shape of the kayak and an imbalance so I added ropes to tie front and back strap set to mitigate hit potential problem.
After hoisting the kayak all the way up, I noticed I still didn’t have enough clearance over the garage door, even after using the inner loops in the straps to reduce the distance between the hooks and top of the kayak. What a disappointment! I thought this project was a fail and I would have to find a different way to hoist the kayaks out of the way.
After bringing the kayak down and taking the straps off, I took a short break to think this over. Looking down at the kayak on the floor, while sipping on my cup of coffee, I saw the solution to my problem. The drain through holes in the hull, 2 in the front and 2 in the rear, provided a perfect route to rig 2 tight rope loops across the 2 front and across the 2 aft holes that not only provided a strong and tight hoisting points but also where 4 inches below the top of the kayak! That is a great gain from the previous setup.
Here’s a pic of the final hoist using this approach. Enough clearance to hoist the kayak over the garage door with about 6 inches to play with. I love the way it worked out.
Nothing like taking a break to refill a much needed second cup of coffee and clear one’s mind to solve a problem. I’ve stepped back out of many project for a few minutes (a day or more in some cases) only to come back with a solution to a problem.
Update June 9, 2018
I followed the same procedure to install the second Kayak Hoist over the other car bay.
And tested the line assembly and controls before fully hoisting the Kayak.
Finally, I hoisted the Kayak to its highest point and completed the installation of the pair. Now,
I hope you enjoyed this post and gives you ideas for your next garage organization projects!