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Nanook's Campfire Tales | |
| Take good care of your ropes | ||
Tying a boat onto the top of a vehicle is a skill, but it's not too hard to learn. Anyone who can master a trucker's hitch and a bowline knot can snug a canoe down anytime.
The Nashwaak drops through a dangerous gorge as it runs by Narrows Mountain.
Then it flows with a much gentler current to the Saint John.
We took a trailer loaded with ten canoes down this woods road up to our put-in on the Nashwaak.
I find it's good to also tie a short rope from one of the thwarts over to the roof rack, to keep the boat from sliding forwards and sideways. Actually, it took me a while to figure that one out.
My bro Laurie had a unique experience with lashing boats to a trailer. It was a group trip involving twenty lads and ten boats, our first whitewater trip on the upper Nashwaak.
We were using a furniture trailer from a local company, and we were able to tie most, if not all, of our canoes onto it. Laurie used careful planning and skillful placement of his ropes to secure them all. Now Laurie is a sailor, and he employs only the best ropes and ties the slickest knots in all such situations.
Imagine his surprise and dismay at the put-in, when one of our participants took his sharp knife and ran it the length of the trailer, up one side and down the other. He severed each length of rope and freed the boats before Laurie had a chance to begin the work of untieing them. To this day, he still shakes his head and wonders at the, shall we say, ignorance of the slasher, who will remain nameless forever.
Oh yes, our trip is documented here.
