Wesley’s Surfski Cart. “Oh,you must be an Engineer?”

I have lived in the same neighborhood for twenty years paddling from McCorrie Point for most of that. 99.9% of the time, I load my boats up and drive down to the beach which takes about 2 minutes. Year’s ago I tried a paddle cart with my sea kayak walking down to the beach. The cart was a typical small wheeled version that did not work too well. I tried it a few times and then gave up walking to the beach. One of the reasons typical kayak carts don’t work is that the hill leading down to the beach is extremely steep. In the summer, running, biking, walking up requires an instant acceleration in one’s heart rate that last about three tenths of a mile before it flattens out to regain your breath. Due to the steepness of the hill and the distance, I needed a “big wheel cart that rolls easily and has enough clearance for my surf skis due to the length.

Surfski Cart

Now that I am in the resting stage with 4 days prior to the Blackburn, I have some extra energy so I decided to make a surf ski cart. Walking to the beach everyday would increase my exercise and save the wear and tear on my car since I paddle virtually everyday. So I spent about two hours researching carts on the Internet a few nights ago, seeing only three that I thought would do the trick. One was for kayaks made in Southborough, Massachusetts by a local guy, the other was made for carrying wood make in Vermont, and the other was the Rubbermaid gardening cart that with some adjustments I thought might work. So yesterday, I spent about 4 hours building my Surf ski Cart. The running joke in my house is “Oh, you must be an engineer”! Years ago while giving a lesson going on the forward stroke to a novice paddler,who was an engineer, asked if I was an engineer. I looked at Betsy, my wife, who was with us and we both burst out laughing! I thanked the novice paddler for his compliment but said” no, I am in Sales!” I am certainly no engineer as Betsy taunts me all the time. My reply often to Betsy is “Sales and Marketing pays the bills around here”! While I can paint, mow the yard, cut bushes, and organize things and talk pharmaceuticals til the cows come home, fixing and building things requires a lot of trial and error on my part. Most often I have to rely on my engineering, sales, paddling, webmaster buddy or our local handy man for repairs.

Yakima Cradles/orange chocks if needed, Boat Stand

This is a long way of saying, as simple as it may seem, my Surf ski Cart, worked out great, if I must say so myself. I experimented for about an hour with a prototype then move to the real McCoy. Having an abundance of racks, I had some left over Trac Rack bars when I had my truck, so they ended up working well because you can just add the Yakima hardware and cradles to them. All I needed to do was build a platform to bolt them into. So I got out my skill saw that I have used exactly twice and cut two pieces of wood and then drilled holes into it and I was done. I used my surf ski stands to hold up the forward end of the cart when at rest, and I used a pair of chocks if I need extra stability while loading my ski. I throw my extra gear in the cart if need be, and off I go down to the beach. Today was the maiden voyage. Everything went according to plan. I was very excited to see how much effort it was to pull the cart up the massive hill. It was not too bad. I was glad however, the ski I had today was the 18S with handles which made it very easy. My other skis I will have to pull with one arm wrapped around the nose of the ski and the other hand on top of the ski. The other benefit of walking to the beach besides the exercise and not using my car, was that I talked to 3 neighbors on the way back! Another added benefit is now I can tell Betsy, ” you know I did build that Surf ski Cart back in the day”!