Newbi question

[Stephen Ling]

My wife and I just purchased our first travel trailer having sold our motor home which we towed our boat with. We have now sold the boat/trailer package and want to switch to a "car topper" aluminum boat. Does anyone have experience with this approach? Is it doable for a couple to load and unload safely on a pickup? Naturally it would be an "ultralight" style

Thank you in advance for any advise. Very much appreciated.

[Yeti]

Here is a link that may help you. Load My Boat: Custom manufacture of recreational loading systems for vehicles I don't know what they cost. If you go to YouTube and type in one man boat loading you will see some home made variations. Looks like they start with a ordinary ladder rack. Let me know what you come up with as Im in the same predicament and looking for ideas myself. Thanks.

[jimp]

If you and your wife are young, in good shape, etc., it's doable. Are you talking about putting the hull on a PU bed "rack" above the bed, or actually in the bed? Even a small tin hull will weight 100#+, be bulky and hard to deal with. You on one end, wife on the other end. If you drop it or it slips, some damage will be done. Are you going to use a gas outboard, more weight, and the gas as well.

Google how to car top a tin hull and read the comments/postings. do the same for Kayaks and car topping. You will read some positive and negative comments.

I've loaded a yak into a PU bed numerous times, no where near as difficult as car topping, but it gets old after one season. I've got a trailer for my current yak, and it's just like launching/loading a full size regular boat for the most part. Much easier. GL

[dewey02]

How about the porta-bote? 12 foot folding rowboat with 3 seats that can mount on the side of your travel trailer. About 70 lbs. Assembles in about 15 minutes. We strap on a 40lb trolling motor and we're gone. Here's mine:



Here it is assembled and on the water (photo is not me, just grabbed from the internet) As you can see it can also handle a small boat motor.