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Does it really matter if we haul our yaks around bow first?
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Author:  Grampa Spey [ Wed Aug 29, 2012 7:56 am ]
Post subject:  Does it really matter if we haul our yaks around bow first?

Second question of the day!:

Like most yakkers, I haul my yaks on a trailer or in the back of the pickup with the bow pointing to the front of the truck.

Most of my hauling trips are short from a few minutes to 15 to 30 and sometimes an hour.

For these short trips, in my driveway, I load the Freedom Hawk yaks, keel side down into and on the bed of the truck.

If the Freedom Hawks are loaded stern first, then I can put the seats in before I leave home, and that makes one less thing to load/fit at the launch site. I started doing this with my FH Pathfinder as I use the plastic tie straps to fasten the Elite seat to the yak, and the seat stays attached to the yak. If I launch from a ramp, I back the truck up to a couple of feet from the water line, and pull the yaks off and nose first into the water.

Then, I can turn them side ways, put the pontoons on and load the gear and motor/battery in the yaks, and in a few minutes, I can park the truck, walk back to the ramp and hop into my FH to take off.

Recently, my wife and I rented a home at Bodega Bay for a week, and before we left to launch the Oasis, we would fit the seats in our keel down Oasis and securely strapped them down as the bow was first on the trailer and the airstream pulled up on the seats even at low speed. That avoided messing with them at the launch area on a fairly narrow and busy road a few minutes from our rental.

If we had loaded the Oasis stern first on the Malone Sport, the air stream impact would have been minimal on the seats and a simple bungee cord would have held and secured them.

We could have put the Mirages in for the short trip for one less thing to mess with at the launch area.

I haven't figured out the logistics of getting the Trax in the Oasis with the stern first.

With the bow first on the trailer, we slide the yak back off, put the stern on a thick rubberized upside down outdoor welcome mat to keep it from slipping. The forward part of the yak is still on the rear cross bar of the trailer, We, then insert the mirages and then the Trax and then unload all of the yak from the trailer. We really don't want to lift the Oasis up or turn it sideways to put in the Trax at this point. That is enough of a hassle at the end of the yakking.

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