Check Your Kayak Straps in the Morning
If you relatively new to securing a kayak on your car’s roof, allow me to offer a tip. Years ago, while living in Florida, I used my kayak nearly each single day for years. Naturally I wanted to get to the water as early as possible. Hey fishing is fishing. To avoid a rush in the morning, typically I secured the board on the car’s roof the night before. It was a great time saver. And since I lived in a gated community theft was unlikely.
In the process, however, I quickly learned something very important. The drop in air temperature overnight, while not huge, was enough to cause my kayak to shrink a smidge. And in turn the straps were no longer real tight. Now I was lucky. The ramp was less than a mile away on a 25 mile per hour side street. But if I had to go out on the main road, loose straps could cause a real problem.
Always check your kayak straps in the morning. Make it standard procedure. Believe me. And the same goes for mounting a canoe on top of the car as well. Check it. And if I was planning on going out on the main road, where the speed limit was 55, I also did something else. In the photo there are no lines off the bow or the transom. Those lines became standard procedure too.
