C
cwriggy
VIP Member
- Messages
- 19
- Vehicle
- T5 SE 140
Having spent months lurking and absorbing all the great information on this forum, I finally got my own Cali in March. One of the things I'd been looking forward to with the cali was having a good base to come back to after a little paddle out in the country. It gives a whole new point of view to just walking / cycling on land. Having gleaned lots of useful information from many other people I thought I ought to add my experience in case it helps others who are going through the same process.
As a child I'd grown up with camping holidays to the coast and mostly Ullswater with a sailing dinghy. Our first canoeing experience as a family was in my dads inflatable Sevylor Colorado inflatable back on Ullswater. With all the seats out we managed to paddle this with all 4 of in Canadian style and had a great time. Spurred on by this and after the usual browsing we ended up buying a Perception Gemini double sit on top. The next trip we had made us realise how badly inflatable canoes paddle. Heading into the wind I physically couldn't make any head way at all - it was fairly windy but not extreme. Coming back with the wind behind us just made the canoe spin so was no better. At the same time my wife was paddling serenely around in the Gemini wondering what my problem was.
We did some capsize practice to make sure we could get back on if need be. The hardest part turned out to be capsizing the canoes as they are very stable. You can easily stand up on them and rock from side to side quite violently. We partly chose sit on tops as we weren't intending to do anything too extreme or long and the ability to climb back on appealed for messing around. They are reasonably heavy for carrying to the water, at a push I can carry one on my head for a hundred yards or so but it's much easier with two. The moulded hand holds help for carrying but the front one is too small to get your hand in and is quite sharp. Carrying from the side is possible but it does tend to pitch up or down which can be awkward to control especially in a wind.
So the next trip out we had 2 perception Geminis it seems canoes are almost as bad as bikes for the number that you need to own. The problem then of course is how to store them and how to carry them. Until the cali arrived carrying was on top of a Skoda Octavia. This worked pretty well but with all camping gear and now two teenagers the suspension was truly tested and any bumps in access roads sounded like we were leaving half the car behind. Having tried several arrangements I'd settled on carrying them upside down one on top of the other.
Seats are essential - I pity anyone who rents a canoe and isn't given the seat with a backrest. Some may be flexible enough to sit there with no support but not I. An optional extra for flat water is a set of bungs to prevent water slopping up the drain holes. In my case these are essential. I'm about six foot and 14 stone and, although with an 8 stone slave harnessed in the front we are well below the capacity of the boat, I sink it below the level where water would come into the seat area. At sea you need to remove the drains to allow the inevitable water ingress to escape. I think the seats in a Gemini are moulded lower than some others which makes them more stable and easy to paddle (even for quite young children). We do notice that the efficiency of the boat goes down as the load increases. It can't be that my wife has better technique than me!
Deciding how to carry them on the cali was the next challenge. It was obvious that stacking them was going to be difficult and possibly dangerous until the top one was secured due to the height. So my approach was to strap them upside down side by side. At 80cm wide this seemed to be easily possible within the body width of the cali though the widest point is obviously much lower than the roof. It was just a case of deciding how well we could reach onto the top and how wide to get bars.
From a search on the net it seemed that all the recommended bars were much narrower than the 160cm that would be required as a minimum. The only obvious options were
So at just shy of 6ft and my son a few inches shorter we can lift the boats into place on the roof. Though you do have to be reasonably strong as it involves lifting the boat above your head as far as possible before manoeuvring the boat over the cali. I like to tie the loose ends of the cam straps quite tightly, as a safety and to prevent flapping. Hence I actually prefer having a work platform, as some others have suggested, to make it easer to reach, otherwise I end up with my hands above my head too long.
The fix point track is great for setting a really big spread to the roof bars making the canoes very stable. Though if set too wide apart it means you are strapping the paddle blades to the bars rather than the paddle shafts, something I may adjust next time.
As a carry vehicle it was superb 4 people for a couple of days camping with canoeing gear, walking gear and a suitcase for 3 days in a hotel. Canoes travelled well and quietly with just front and rear straps for each canoe. I initially put and extra front and rear strap over both boats but this started to drum at about 40mph so was quickly removed. No scrapes on the campsite access track which was amazing. I wouldn't want to lift the roof with it all on though. It would be over 50kg and add more windage to the roof.
Well from a few pointers to help people choose roof bars - this has turned into something of a novel!!
All that's left are a few images to set the scene, and hopefully reward anyone that had the patience to read this far.
the basic setup:
And with canoes:
And finally why it's all worth it. A cali, two canoes and some fantastic weather made even more enjoyable with a diesel heater for the frosty nights (click through to see the full glory of these panoramas):
As a child I'd grown up with camping holidays to the coast and mostly Ullswater with a sailing dinghy. Our first canoeing experience as a family was in my dads inflatable Sevylor Colorado inflatable back on Ullswater. With all the seats out we managed to paddle this with all 4 of in Canadian style and had a great time. Spurred on by this and after the usual browsing we ended up buying a Perception Gemini double sit on top. The next trip we had made us realise how badly inflatable canoes paddle. Heading into the wind I physically couldn't make any head way at all - it was fairly windy but not extreme. Coming back with the wind behind us just made the canoe spin so was no better. At the same time my wife was paddling serenely around in the Gemini wondering what my problem was.
We did some capsize practice to make sure we could get back on if need be. The hardest part turned out to be capsizing the canoes as they are very stable. You can easily stand up on them and rock from side to side quite violently. We partly chose sit on tops as we weren't intending to do anything too extreme or long and the ability to climb back on appealed for messing around. They are reasonably heavy for carrying to the water, at a push I can carry one on my head for a hundred yards or so but it's much easier with two. The moulded hand holds help for carrying but the front one is too small to get your hand in and is quite sharp. Carrying from the side is possible but it does tend to pitch up or down which can be awkward to control especially in a wind.
So the next trip out we had 2 perception Geminis it seems canoes are almost as bad as bikes for the number that you need to own. The problem then of course is how to store them and how to carry them. Until the cali arrived carrying was on top of a Skoda Octavia. This worked pretty well but with all camping gear and now two teenagers the suspension was truly tested and any bumps in access roads sounded like we were leaving half the car behind. Having tried several arrangements I'd settled on carrying them upside down one on top of the other.
Seats are essential - I pity anyone who rents a canoe and isn't given the seat with a backrest. Some may be flexible enough to sit there with no support but not I. An optional extra for flat water is a set of bungs to prevent water slopping up the drain holes. In my case these are essential. I'm about six foot and 14 stone and, although with an 8 stone slave harnessed in the front we are well below the capacity of the boat, I sink it below the level where water would come into the seat area. At sea you need to remove the drains to allow the inevitable water ingress to escape. I think the seats in a Gemini are moulded lower than some others which makes them more stable and easy to paddle (even for quite young children). We do notice that the efficiency of the boat goes down as the load increases. It can't be that my wife has better technique than me!
Deciding how to carry them on the cali was the next challenge. It was obvious that stacking them was going to be difficult and possibly dangerous until the top one was secured due to the height. So my approach was to strap them upside down side by side. At 80cm wide this seemed to be easily possible within the body width of the cali though the widest point is obviously much lower than the roof. It was just a case of deciding how well we could reach onto the top and how wide to get bars.
From a search on the net it seemed that all the recommended bars were much narrower than the 160cm that would be required as a minimum. The only obvious options were
- Thule Square bars. 160 or 200 cm
- Luckily they had some of these in Halfords they are a solid bar without the slot needed for the foot pack we need. Options would have been to cut a slot to mount the foot pack or strap them to another roof bar using U bolts - a few people have done this on canoe forums but not my preferred solution
- Kari-Tek easy load system with special wide build
- The Kari-Tek solution looks great especially for sea canoes but is expensive and I wasn't sure about hanging two very large canoes off the side of a lifting roof. My boats are too wide to fit in the normal supports and to put them flat would have required a specially wide loading system and it wasn't really clear how to hold the boats in place until they are strapped
- Thule 393 Professional Pro bars 175cm
- This is what I went for. The slot underneath goes the full length of the bar so positioning the foot pack in the correct place is easy. They have rubber inserts for the top which help grip the boat when it's strapped on. The section is quite deep so it seems strong enough to cope with the slightly long overhang (looking up T5 with fix point Thule suggest 150cm for this type of bar). If you are interested in these bars they appeared to be special order in all the places I contacted so leave yourself plenty of time before a trip - mine only just made it in time.
So at just shy of 6ft and my son a few inches shorter we can lift the boats into place on the roof. Though you do have to be reasonably strong as it involves lifting the boat above your head as far as possible before manoeuvring the boat over the cali. I like to tie the loose ends of the cam straps quite tightly, as a safety and to prevent flapping. Hence I actually prefer having a work platform, as some others have suggested, to make it easer to reach, otherwise I end up with my hands above my head too long.
The fix point track is great for setting a really big spread to the roof bars making the canoes very stable. Though if set too wide apart it means you are strapping the paddle blades to the bars rather than the paddle shafts, something I may adjust next time.
As a carry vehicle it was superb 4 people for a couple of days camping with canoeing gear, walking gear and a suitcase for 3 days in a hotel. Canoes travelled well and quietly with just front and rear straps for each canoe. I initially put and extra front and rear strap over both boats but this started to drum at about 40mph so was quickly removed. No scrapes on the campsite access track which was amazing. I wouldn't want to lift the roof with it all on though. It would be over 50kg and add more windage to the roof.
Well from a few pointers to help people choose roof bars - this has turned into something of a novel!!
All that's left are a few images to set the scene, and hopefully reward anyone that had the patience to read this far.
the basic setup:
And with canoes:
And finally why it's all worth it. A cali, two canoes and some fantastic weather made even more enjoyable with a diesel heater for the frosty nights (click through to see the full glory of these panoramas):
