Launching / Loading your Solo Skiff

We get a lot of questions about transporting a Solo Skiff and I wanted to write a few words to point out a few things. One of the big things we get asked about a LOT is if the solo skiff be car topped. Although there are some people doing it, and pictures floating around – it is not easy picking up ANYTHING that weighs 150 pounds and putting it on top of ANY vehicle, and Solo Skiff is no exception.. Doing this is not a task for the meek. Now- there are a few loading devices on the market that help you load a heavy kayak. I doubt the effectiveness on a hull the size of a Solo Skiff, but, I am not saying it cannot be done…one more thing we need to learn about…more projects lol. I cannot at this time talk about those and will not because I do not have personal experience with ANY of them.

The main way most people carry the solo skiff is with a pickup truck. As seen in pictures and videos on our site it is quite easy to put a solo skiff into your pickup truck, with a little lifting muscle. Now- one of the biggest things I want to stay in this article is:

The use of a bed extender makes all the difference in the world !

Launching and loading the Solo without one is quite frankly not so easy… sliding it out on a boat ramp is pretty easy but where you really need it is setting it down into the water ! A Bed Extender allows you to get behind the solo skiff,grab the handle and easily set it down into the water (or pick it up) watch the video and you will see what I am talking about. If you are contemplating carrying the boat around with your truck that is how I do it and I’ve been doing it since day one and I do not plan on ever buying a trailer.

That brings up the next topic. For those of you who do not have trucks (or do not want to lift) small trailers work excellent ! There are so many different brands of trailers out there I could not even begin to list them by the way. The main thing is you need is a trailer with two bunks a minimum of four feet long – each spaced about 12 inches apart, and the trailer from the back frame member to the hitch needs to be 14 feet or longer. As far as structure goes, the solo is so light any trailer with a 250 pound capacity will work. Once again I will not mention specific makes of trailers I have seen solos successfully hauled on everything from Harbor Freight trailers to trailer kits.
The next topic to address is one of beach launching. A lot of people launch their solo skiff on the beach when the ocean conditions allow. The best way by far is to use a dolly. Wether you buy one , make one, borrow one, use a dolly. We use one made for sailboats. If you watch the video you will be quite surprised just how easy it is to load it from a truck, roll it to the water and launch… its a piece of cake.
Now regardless of how you carry your boat around a lot of people wonder how I personally store my boat to make it easy to load it on and off the truck from my storage…thats an easy one. I have 3 plastic saw horses I bought at Home Depot made by husky they are black, all one piece, and cost like 16 dollars each. I simply slide my solo skiff on to them. I use one on the very back of the boat, one in the middle, and one on the bow. I have put Runners on top of them made of two by twos fastened to them it works beautifully and makes loading the boat into my truck extremely easy as well as sliding the boat back from the truck when I’m finished. This only ads to the enjoyment of the boat. I hope these suggestions help some of you if you have questions feel free to email us and ask. We suggest watching the videos of the boat launch on the video page as well.