Using a Car Rack to Carry a Canoe

Video Transcript

"To put a boat on top of your car, you want to make sure that you lift it up carefully and then tie it down securely so it doesn’t go anywhere when you’re driving. It can be a real hazard to you and to other drivers if you don’t tie it down carefully. So, we talked before about how to pick a boat up, you want to pick it up using your back, using your legs not your back, um, you can throw it up over your head like this, put it up on your rack, make sure it’s balanced evenly front to back, and then I’m going to go over and throw some straps over to this side so we can strap it down. I prefer straps over rope because it doesn’t require any sort of knowledge of knots and these are nice secure straps that have a good cam buckle on each, on one end. You snug those down, the boat’s not going to go anywhere, and then the only concern you have is whether or not your racks are going to stay on your car, and so in order to make sure that even if your racks do come off the car that your boat stays on the car, stays in control is, it’s a good idea to tie down the bow rope, and most of these cars have something underneath the front bumper that you can tie to, and when it’s nice and snug that’ll make sure that the boat’s nice and stable and as long as the racks stay on the car and the boat stays on the racks, you’re good to go. "