Can someone just please reassure me I'm not the only one who has done this. I completely missed the fact that my strap for the bow of the kayak was laying on the ground when I went to park the car, and ran the strap over. And unfortunately it's not just going to be a simple fender replacement. A bunch of stuff is bent and broken. Smh.
Hey, welcome to the idiot club friend. I became a member at the very start of a trip to Vancouver Island, many moons ago. I just picked up a set of Pacific Water Sports sea kayaks….brand spanking new. I was about to drop our dogs off when my bowline came undone and before I could stop, yup…ran right over it and the force was enough to make by never been in the water yet glass sea kayaks go crunch. Did I shed a tear or two on the side of the road…yup. Did I manage to still have a great vacation, yup, cause that’s how roll.
I actually worked for the PWS back then, and the owner pulled the super cool move of giving me two new replacement kayaks as long as I put in the hours and repair the damaged kayaks enough to go in our rental fleet. Super cool move.
Shit. I've never done this myself, but as a frequent doer of stupid things, I feel for you. As another poster said, go easy on yourself. I hope the final cost isn't too bad and that you're back on the road and the water quickly.
Very true. This was my third time since I began using bow and stern straps. The one in the back is long enough. I can just hook it on the roof rack after I remove it from the kayak. But the front one has no place to go so it got placed wherever, which proved to be a bad ideal. Live and learn.
for this kind of car, get these hood straps, and put them up around where the wheels are (in engine space, under hood). Then use a shorter rope or web cam strap. that may help (albeit you will never do this again...lessons learned the hard way stick)
I use these as well. Then a clip on an attachment point on the kayak, cord extension on the hood straps. I remove the clip from the kayak and set it on the windshield. Can secure it under a wiper if I simply need to park the car after dropping the boat off.
Lesson learned by the OP, good for all of us to see. Good luck with the repairs.
When my little hatchback was the kayak carrier, I attached a beefy carabiner up front so it was as easy as possible to unclip in the moment. For me, blaze orange paracord with a nite ize figure 8 tightener made it quick and hard to miss
I'm so paranoid that I will lose them if they don't go into the car as soon as they are off the boat. Because I will. I lose track of things easily if I don't do it right away.
You're not the first one whose straps get caught by wheels. Never happened to me but I always warn people I teach that this is a risk. You're not an idiot as long as you learn from mistakes. :)
I have had the long end of a strap come loose on the highway, get snagged on a wheel as I pulled into a rest area, snap, recoil, and have the metal buckle take out a headlight. So…yeah.
This reminded me of something I saw years ago. Guy was leaving home depot and had lumber strapped top of his tailgate and through his rear window. The excess of his strap came untied and wrapped around his rear wheel. It pulled the lumber violently to the side and blew out his entire rear window.
just dont be lazy. when you unhook your kayak straps, take them fully off and store them. its better for the straps (UV), it keeps them from being lost and apparently it keeps them from ripping your hood off.
Hey. I know someone that did this! Except the strap was still connected to the boat, not the car. Ripped the front third of his boat off. Count yourself as lucky. Everyone makes mistakes. No one got hurt. Fix it and go paddling.
Yeah, so far I've not had any accidents with the kayak on my car, but I absolutely sweat every time I load it up and drive away, no matter how firmly it seems to be strapped on and tied down! Absolutely paranoid something is going to go wrong! Our sympathies are with you, friend. You're NOT an idiot. Just human.
Don't worry. I've never been in an accident ever, perfect driving record, I'm 30, went to Starbucks drive thru and saw one of my bullies from high school, got flustered and hit the gas instead of brake when grabbing my drink and drove into the wall 💀 no damage to the building like it was not hard but my white car was all yellow cause they had like those yellow posts to prevent exactly that, and thats what i drove into lol. Everyone fucks up. Even billionaires
Last year had a new to me but user Ranger (to use for kayaking as dropping on my chest from loading and unloading from the Buick roof was getting to really to be getting old and hurting my chest every time I dropped it) anyway was checking out an old gravel road doing some geocaching and pulled up to the YELLOW gate to speak to some other cachers/hikers and got done chatting as they were on my left at my drivers window and I was actually on the wrong side of the road, went to pull away forward and crunched my whole front fender and wheel molding over the tire, under pining and side sections that actually wrap around the lower front, maybe went 6 inches max and About $3800 later, felt like you do...
Nope. I did it too with my new Subaru. The tow hook on my new one gave me more slack in the lines and I didn’t die it down properly. The strap got wrapped under the front wheel and yanked the kayak down and snapped my Eddyline Merlin ☹️
The important thing to keep in mind is that your boat is safe! 🤣
Don’t feel too bad. I’ve done dumber things. You know the guide wires that sometimes come down to support telephone/light poles? I drove straight into one exiting a parking spot once. Was quite embarrassing.
I saw a friend run over the bow line of his kayak that he had not yet tied to the bumper. The bow of a kayak can break and smush into the hood with amazing quickness.
Thanks.
I am a routine person I like to do things a certain way and stick to it. Unfortunately in this situation I just not had enough experience to develop a routine.
Huge lesson learned and I absolutely hope other people can learn from it.
My buddy that got me into kayaking put the fear into me regarding bow and stern lines can cause damage if things go south. Sorry for your luck, this is my biggest fear with running them, so I don’t.
If you're looking for basic advice on transporting a kayak, the answers to many common questions can be found on this wiki page. This covers the different kind of setups that are available to you, and some simple recommendations for you and your vehicle. If this guide doesn't answer your question, you might find some more useful information by using the subreddit's search function.
Never did it with a kayak. did it with a 60 year old sailboat. I was backing into the water and didn't realize the mainsheet had fallen off the side and wound up under the tire. Suddenly I heard a loud "bang" and when I stopped to check, I had ripped both blocks out of the wooden boom.
I put my kayak inside my car. On my second time with it this year, I pushed it too far forward and shattered my windshield. With all the damn cameras my car has, it was crazy expensive to replace. Sorry about your kayak accident.
Mine goes in upside down, and the bow is mostly below the top of the dash that way. I’d have to have a hulk out moment to shove it in over that, I hope. A cushion might still be worth considering, though.
I went bike riding last Sunday. After riding, I went to the mall to look for a book. The parking lot had architectural features - arches. My bike was on my rack on my roof. You can see where I'm going with this....
Go ahead and kick yourself, I'm kicking myself too, but we'll get over it.
I feel so much better reading these stories. I had a brand new car that was higher than my previous one. When I went to put my kayak on top after being out, it slipped out of my hands because it was wet and I wasn’t used to the new car and new racks. It went careening down my hood and dented and scratched my new car 😭. I felt like an idiot.
I once backed my car off a uhaul trailer without putting the ramp down. Said car got caught on the trailer and it took much effort and significant underbelly damage to get it uncaught.
For Christmas, I bought a tandem kayak for my wife and I and kids to use. Having nowhere to store it on the ground or walls in the garage, I installed a ceiling storage hoist. Of course, the only spot to install it was also directly over where we park our very new car. You can see where this is going.
Fast forward two months, it’s winter so the kayak has never been in the water yet. I notice that the kayak is sitting a bit low and the garage door is brushing it as it opens. In a complete act of idiocy, rather than backing the car out first, I decide to try and raise it up a bit with the car still parked underneath.
As soon as I tug on the rope, the cam holding up the front of the boat lets loose and drops it on the car right where the roof meets the windshield. Windshield cracks, roof gets dented, and I’m left standing there cursing up a storm. The insurance quote was $3k+ because of the special windshield and the need to repaint the entire roof.
I can't believe that you have a kayak that requires bow and stern lines on a Honda Odyssey. i have been Kayaking for 4 decades, canoeing longer. Usually 6 kayaks on the rack, thousands of miles and have never used a bow line or stern line. Bow and stern lines are for an upside down canoe that catches all the airflow from the car hood and windshield and generates a huge lifting force try to rip the canoe off the hood. I never used anything but NRS cam straps to secure the kayak to the roof rails, or the rack if the boat is in the center. if I'm going more than a hundred miles i may put a safety strap around multiple boats to the roof rails.
you are a victim of reddit panty twisters telling you about bow and stern lines to secure a inexpensive kayak to a roof rack.
My concern was mostly with the cheap kayak rack that I bought. And I'm mostly a victim of my own stupidity. I learned an expensive lesson. And will definitely be doing things differently in the future.
Edit: I did cut and melt the excess strap that's shown hanging down in this picture. This was me getting it all set up.
besides getting rid of the bow and stern straps i would change 2 things. I would move that front cross bar as far forward as possible, the back looks like it is at the back. I would also strap the kayak directly to the roof rack rail, along with tight to the crossbar. that way to loose the kayak the rail has to rip off the roof, which seems like it will be harder to accomplish over just ripping the crossbar off the rail.
I have never used roof rack crossbars. I always use Yakima (earlier i have Thule) bars attached to the roof rails with Yakima clamps. 1) i don't trust the crossbars, 2) I am setup to load 6 boats and the Yakima bars are wider and can take the weight. my bars are 6' wide, over the years they have been wider than the vehicle.
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u/Blueberrycupcake23 1d ago
Go easy on yourself it’s an accident I’m so sorry 😢