Sea Kayaks on Deck

[tsl]

I want to carry two sea kayaks on the deck of my O'day 39. What's the best location? On each side or both in the center?
I will be sailing the great lakes and coastal cruising.
Sea kayak - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I would appreciate anyone experience with them and any rigging help.

[callmecrazy]

Whatever you're comfortable with. I see a lot of stuff mounted to side decks and it makes me wonder how difficult it would be to walk to the bow in anything less than a calm... But if recall (sailed on an oday 39 for a week on Lake MI), your boat has some pretty wide side decks with the shrouds planted right in the middle of the walkway. It would make sense to decide if you prefer to walk on the inside or outside of the shrouds, then mount them on the opposite side...

or just put them on the cabin top forward of the mast. Where's your dinghy stored?

[Alberto]

We sail in the Chesapeake Bay on our 34’ sailboat, and sometimes we carry two kayaks on trips of less than 40 nm each way. Before we used to tow them, which was Ok most of the time (during a thunderstorm one was airborne a couple of times for quite a long time). Docking was a little complicated, and while towing they would eventually bang against each other.

More recently we started to carry them on deck. We tie them together bow to bow, stern to stern, with bungee cords passing under the grab rails (see bottom left of the picture). In rough weather we tie them more securely. Any work around the mast gets messy, and they block the view from the cockpit, but the joy of kayaking in places like the Rhode or Wye rivers is worth the trouble.


Alberto