Carrying 2014 Hobie Mirage Oasis Tandem Kayak Down Steps

Hi everyone,

First post as I just purchased a Mirage Oasis a few days ago (still enroute from the store).

I live close enough to the beach (~1/8 mile) to transport my tandem kayak using Hobie's heavy-duty cart, but there is one entry point to the beach that requires going down about 12 steps. If I'm by myself, any techniques or ideas for transporting my Hobie down/up small set of steps? Should I leave the cart plugged in and simply pull the kayak down while grabbing the front handle? Or is it possible to shoulder carry down the steps?

Thanks in advance for suggestions/help!

Place over you head like a canoe and walk it down. Get in the middle and try to keep it balanced with both hands above your head. I do this with an outback, but not sure the weight difference with a tandem. Good Luck

Can you place two 10' sections of 3" or 4" diam. lengths of drain pipe down the steps and slide them down and back up? As long as there is sand on the bottom, or a cushion if you let go by accident...

Good question!!! I guess you need to try it out and see if that will work. Sound like a good plan, but needs some trying it out to see. Good Luck

Great suggestions--thank you! I'll give both options a try and give a report later this afternoon if the weather holds up. There is some really soft sand at the bottom of the steps, so a small error would be ok.

Thanks again!

We own an Oasis and the C-Tug Kayak makes what you want to do reasonably safe and simple.

Go to the YouTube link below and go to 225 to see the answer to your question.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0ijJCIuXyM

Stay safe and don't hurt yourself and/or your Oasis.

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2009 Oasis
2012 Freedom Hawk Pathfinder

Modify a trolley with wheels in this style?

'tain't easy

Whenever I have tried pulling my yaks down steps I have found that the cart, if not strapped on, has a tendency to drop out of the scupper holes when the boat spans a step and the gap between the hull and the ground gets beyond a certain distance.

This can be quite catastrophic if you are on a steep slope with a heavily-laden kayak because, while the kayak may be supported upright when on the cart, as soon as you remove the cart's lateral resistance and let the yak rest on its nose, tail or bottom, which aren't flat, it WILL fall over in one direction or the other and stuff that is stowed but not fixed down will slide about and exacerbate the lean. In some cases the kayak will flip right over on the slope and snap fishing rods that are placed in the holders (do you detect a tone of heard-earned experience in this reply?)

On a steep-enough slope, if you do not have someone with you to help, as soon as you let go of it to set it back on its wheels the boat will then slide off down the slope/stairs/steps/dune and I have experienced the kayak falling off its cart and then, because of the slipperiness of the hull on the grass it fell onto, sliding down the slope on top of me and being impossible to stop via the front towing handle because of its weight: I just had to step out of the way & let it find its own way down.

My recommendation: carry it down if you can (I would require assistance with my Oasis), if not, then a strapped-on cart of one sort or another and push the kayak down the stairs/slope. I usually try to avoid stairs and instead lower the kayak down a nearby slope (if there is one). If there isn't one and/or the slope is very steep I would definitely consider trying sliding the boat down whatever surface without a cart - I usually have sand/dunegrass but the poly hulls are incredibly tough so it is unlikely to sustain fatal damage even on harder surfaces like wood (though I agree that rock/concrete/gravel would have me wincing a bit) - I would only do this with the boat unladen, though, and then I would load it up at the bottom of the slope.

How about a couple of short skis that attach to your wheels and span just 2 1/2 steps? The wheel attachment lets the "skis" articulate as necessary to optimize contact. You can wax or sand the bottoms to provide appropriate friction for the descent effort -- unclip them at the bottom.

That's the easy part. Getting back up the steps is another matter. Maybe a come-along rig??

Sometimes the scupper cart creates more difficulty than it is worth. PE hulls are amazingly durable and over time are going to get scratched and marred on the bottom (you should see the bottoms of all of our hulls). We used to worry about scratching our hulls and be very careful, not so much any more, I don't even look at the hull bottom except once annually where I strip the boat down, flip it over and repair all the scratches and nicks. The deep gouges I fill with the Hobie welder, all the rest I just use a single edge razor blade and scrape back and forth holding the blade vertically. The scraping motion removes the outer most layer of the plastic (looks like snow as it come off). When your done you have a nice shiny smooth clean surface again (looks like new).
You would have to scrape literally for hours in one spot over and over again to remove .015" of material, and the hulls in many high wear areas like the bow and stern can be as much as 3/8-1/2" thick, you have 20 yrs worth of material before you would scrape thru, besides, any deep gouges you would fill anyway because it would take ten to 15 hrs of scraping to get that spot clean.

The reason I explained all the above, is trying to faithfully try and use your scupper cart often creates way more work than it's worth. A good example is we were in the Michigan UP a couple years ago (we are campers and would travel all over the country all summer with camper in tow and kayaks on the roof). We found a cool lake we wanted to explore but the only access was down a grassy 30 degree embankment about 50 ft long. We loaded the boats (one Oasis and one of our Revo's), took the scupper carts out then tied a rope to one end, then just slid the kayaks down the hill. We sailed around the lake and had a blast, when done we tied a line to the bow of the boats, then tied the other end to the bumper of our car and dragged the kayaks up the hill, once at the top we put the scupper carts back in and loaded up. We do the same down here in Florida across the big soft sugar sand beaches, it can be a 1/4 to 1/2 mile walk out to the water across ankle deep soft sugar like sand, using any scupper cart always makes it ten times harder. It's just easier to remove the cart and pull the hull thru the sand and grass. Of course you put the cart in across rocks and parking lots.
I'm just sayin if I had to go down those stairs I would just tie a line to the back of the boat and ease it down the stairs (with no cart). To get it back up it would just drag it up with a rope.
I think it's just Hobie owners that are anal about scratching their kayaks, and every Hobie owner out there that I have seen faithfully has a scupper cart, and wheels it around, even if it's only 10 ft. Pretty much every other brand of kayaks you will only see 1 in 20 kayaks with any carts at all (most don't even own carts), everybody else just drags their boats around (if you don't believe me, just start watching people at launches).
I'm just sayin.
Bob

EDIT:
I know I'm going to get blasted for what I said above about scupper carts and kayak care. Everyone will say the Hobies are so much more expensive than the other brands, that the owners want to take care of them more. This is not really true (they are actually comparably priced with most other quality brands), All of us really want the mirage pedal drive system, which adds about a $600-$700 dollar premium to our boats (well worth it in my opinion). If you factor that $700 dollars out of the picture you will find the price in line with most higher quality recreational kayaks with an average price of between $1,000 and $1,300 dollars, when comparing apples to apples Hobies are a very good value ( IMO), yea you can get a $300 kayak at Walmart, good luck with that, once you use it one season, you would be lucky to sell it for $50 bucks (just look on craigs list LOL).

Bob, Far from blasting you outa the water I think you have hit the nail on the head.

Fully agree.
I have never worried about scratches.

I often tie up the Tanden Island for a few days or weeks rather than re-launching.
Even the reeds and sand rubbing over a time can leave marks.
But boy, do I have fun - winds up, jump on and have a ball.
I guarantee when I update my TI I will get better than 50% resale value, scratches or not.

I should say, I remove the paddles and mirage drives when I leave it overnight.
And I have a stainless steel cable and padlock it to a tree or a star dropper that I put in my favourite place. Now I wonder if you guys call them star droppers over there?

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Cheers, Brian in South Australia
Tandem Island -

Make a cradle dolly that's higher off the ground so when you go up and down steeper stuff your kayak won't hit the ground. This dolly will go up and down stairs, rocks, cliffs, etc., no problem.

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