I learned something new today.

One of my road blocks after buying my kayak was “how the heck do I transport this thing?”

See, I bought an “over-sized” kayak to fit my needs, so, it’s bulky and doesn’t fit in my van.  I took a trip from Kansas to Texas once and my brother helped me secure it to the top of our expedition using ratchet straps and rope, this worked well, but I was nervous about the over- tightening of the ratchets, and also, the metal damaging my kayak.

Well, it’s been a while and I’ve still struggled with the “transporting my kayak” issue.  Until yesterday.  Frustrated that my kayak was somewhere that I needed to go pick it up from (it got there by trailer), and knowing that I still preferred assistance on tying it down, I decided to pull into Academy on a whim and purchase a kayak carrier.  Upon this purchase I realized that it came with rope and “cam straps”.   So I did some googling and realized that cam straps are recommended because ratchet straps can easily be “over-tightened” and cause damage to my kayak. “yikes, big gulp here.”  Because I immediately thought…what damage have I already done? Ugh!

Here’s one of my sources (out of many) that I found on the topic:

http://www.austinkayak.com/blog/2010/10/dont-kill-your-kayak/

and this one…

https://forums.paddling.com/discussion/1377272/cam-straps-vs-ratchet-straps

Any way, there’s my tip.  Now knowing this and because of my experience, cam straps really do make more sense.  Sheesh.

Knowledge is Power for real.