DIY Kayak Lift

At my family's cabin, we have a single car garage often over filling with toys and zero wall space to work with, so I began to look into store bought kayak lifts. However, most of the lifts would not work  with the area I had to work with, so there I was having to figure out my own lift.

MAKE SURE TO READ THIS ENTIRE POST BEFORE STARTING THIS PROJECT!

Concept

I had 3 major goals

1. Build a system that was out of the way as much as possible.
2. Use as many items laying around my house as I could, keeping the cost low.
3. Build a system so I could hang multiple boats. (requiring 600 lbs) 

First, I measured out the garage and drew a to scale diagram of the garage, including cabinets and the heater that I needed to avoid, and laid out the lift. I picked up the needed hardware at home depot or on amazon.

Materials

1- Double pulley     -$12

4- single pulleys with swivel connection     -$10

3- J-screw     -$12
1- Eye-screw with small gap large enough to get a pulley on it     -$15
4- Carabiners or similar clips     -$10 5 pack
2- 2 inch metal rings     -$10 4 pack (be careful of weight rating)
1- Boat winch (optional) *see other options below     -$25
2- Leg bolts for winch   -$4
6 feet of web strapping
Enough rope to be able to drop the lift all the way to the ground. I used paracord due to its high strength and I have a huge real of it laying around.

The first step is to mount the old boat winch. If you do not plan on using a boat winch just skip this step.

In order to do so, I had to drill new mounting holes on the side opposite of the crank handle. When marking to drill the new mounting holes, make sure they are drilled in a spot that will hit backing in the wall and line up with the double pulley. Also, make sure you can reach and tighten the bolts with a ratchet wrench (I did not consider this but ended out getting extremely lucky). To mount the wench to the wall, mark out where the mounting bolts will go, pre-drill the holes and remove any material that might interfere with the crank. My winch had a shaft that hung passed it's supporting plate.

My winch is mounted next to a window so I had extra backing to mount to, giving me a wide bolt pattern.

The paracord runs up the wall to a double pulley mounted to one of the J-hooks. The paracord then runs along the ceiling perpendicular to the wall, to an eye-hook with two single pulleys. The pulleys split the 2 cords in order to run the cord parallel to the wall. The last pulleys are positioned so the kayak is centered in the space and the supporting straps are as close to Fore and Aft bulk heads as possible, putting the least amount of stress on the hull. Make sure that all the hooks are firmly set into a stud or rafter pre-drilling each hook.

Note instead of the D-schackle use the two pulleys

The supporting straps are made from an old car hauler strap I had laying around but could be made from any two inch or wider strapping. Each one is cut to wrap around the hull then sit a comfortable distance above the deck, mine being about a foot. After the straps are cut to the proper length, I then drilled a hole in each end and used a lighter to singe off any fibers and seal all cut parts of the webbing. Be careful not to catch the straps on fire. Then, place a carabiner or clip in each hole.

Notice the black on the left side of the upper strap because of too much heat.

The last step is to run all the paracord and tie the metal loops to the paracord using a strong secure knot. After tying on the metal loops, cycle the system to make sure you have enough paracord or rope before cutting it to length.

Other Options

If you do not use a boat winch, mount a dock cleat or a cam cleat to keep the lift in place. You may want to also replace the final pulleys over the kayak and the metal loops with a block and tackle to make it easier to lift the kayaks (if you do, this keep in mind it will take a considerable more amount of paracord). Also, if you are going to build the lift to hold multiple boats this would be a good idea.

To make a system with multiple boats simply cut a short strap add two holes like previously shown, then add a clip to one side. Then, perpendicularly over lap the previous support strap and clip it to the hole on the other side making a loop. Then attach the next boat's support strap.

Results

The best part of this lift is that it is set up to be out of the way in a very tight garage even the crank handle pops of to give me just a little more room. Overall, I am extremely happy with the way it turned out.

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