So when I bought my kayak, I didn’t have a solution as to where I would store it. I live in a small single house on the main floor without a garage or any other suitable outdoor storage space. So I ended up just laying it down on the floor. A 17 ft kayak is pretty large… larger than you expect when you bring it indoors. It was lying in my bedroom, along the hallways outside of my bedroom and stretched into my kitchen. I just accepted it for a couple weeks then it gets real annoying real fast, having to step over it all the time. At least I could deal with it for a short period of time unlike my kayaking buddies who actually bought a house together to store their kayaks – seriously.
So, I put some thought into figuring out some kind of storage solution for my kayak. Since I have no outdoor space and I have a drop ceiling on the whole main floor, I figured it would be pretty cool to have some kind of hoist and actually store my kayak in the ceiling after taking out a few ceiling tiles. After looking around the internet for some kind of hoist system, I found exactly what I wanted. It’s called the Harken Hoister.
It’s a system of pulleys, ropes and straps that allows you to put straps around the boat with a quick connect buckle fastened to nylon straps, then pull on a rope attached to the straps through pulleys to raise the boat up. When you let go of the rope gently, a cleat on the first pullet grabs the rope preventing it from lowering, somewhat sililar to a blind lock. When you want to lower, you pull the rope tight and off to the side while you gently release it – this stops the cleat from digging into the rope and allows it to lower. Naturally, this pulley system is intended for a garage so you can hoist you boat off the vehicle and store it overhead, but it works awesome inside my house.
I rearranged the ceiling tiles so the kayak almost fits within the 2 ft. wide section of tiles – I just had to cut the three middle ones a little smaller on one side for the boat to fit. It sits with the bottom just slightly lower than the ceiling tiles in all it’s glory. At first I didn’t know if I should trust the cleats or the pulleys (I did manage to screw them into some beams in the ceiling, a must) The thought of my 55lb kayak landing square on my head while I sat at my computer doesn’t sound fun. But it really is very secure – I’ve been using it for 3 years now. Next house I get I’ll obviously get one with some kayak storage space in mind, but until then, this solution will certainly do. It’s also an interesting talking point when people visit!
The Harken Hoister comes in either a four point lift, which is the style I got to make sure it is as flush as is could be up to the ceiling, or a slightly lower cost two point system, it also is available in different garage (errr…. or ceiling) heights and capacities. The one I got costs around a hundred bucks.
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