The best kayak storage racks

Why a stored boat deforms and a paddled one does not

Polyethylene creeps. Under a constant load, at a constant point, over a long enough time, it takes a set and does not come back. That is a property of the material, not a defect, and it is the single reason this page exists.

On the water a hull is supported by its entire wetted length, evenly, by something that yields. In a garage it is usually supported by two hard points and its own weight, in whatever position it landed, for eleven months. One of those is a load case the boat was designed for.

The specific failures, in the order you will meet them on a second-hand boat:

• A flat spot on the hull bottom. From resting upright on a concrete floor. It is the most common deformation you will find on a used kayak and it makes the boat track slightly worse forever.
• Oil-canning at two points. From resting on two narrow bars or sawhorses, particularly with a heavy boat and a warm garage roof space. This is the one that looks alarming.
• A collapsed side. From storing a boat on its side against a wall without support, which sounds sensible and puts the entire weight on one gunwale.
• UV chalking. Not deformation, but the other storage-caused problem. Sun on plastic for years makes it brittle, and a chalky, badly faded hull is worth a closer look than a shiny one — a point we make on what a used kayak is worth.

The one rule that prevents all of it

Store a kayak on its side or upside down, supported at the strongest part of the hull, on something wide and soft, roughly a third of the way in from each end.

On its side is best for a sit-in with a cockpit rim; the boat is strongest across its beam. Upside down works for a sit-on-top and keeps rain, leaves and mice out. Right way up on its flat bottom is the one arrangement to avoid, which is unfortunately the one that feels most natural.

“A third of the way in from each end” is the same principle as the bulkhead positions on a sea kayak: support near the ends means the middle sags, and support in the middle means the ends droop. Thirds is the compromise that loads neither.

How we ranked these

Four criteria, weighted equally and published on how we pick: capacity (the published load rating against what a real boat weighs), hull protection (how wide and how soft the contact patch is), install (what the mounting actually demands of your building), and value.

Capacity is the criterion people over-weight. A recreational polyethylene kayak is typically 40 to 70 pounds; both racks here publish more than double that. Once the rating clears the boat, the contact patch matters far more than the headroom in the number.

Wall arms or slings: a decision about your building

This is not really a product comparison. It is a question about what you own.

Wall arms — the Suspenz EZ Rack approach — need studs, and Suspenz publishes 125 lb of capacity on arms that hold the hull 20 inches clear of the wall. Twenty inches is the number that matters: it is what stops a boat resting against drywall and developing a flat side over a winter. The arms are 600D nylon over foam with two integrated straps, so the contact patch is padded and the boat is secured rather than balanced.

Slings — the Malone SlingTwo approach — need a ceiling or a joist and almost nothing else. Malone publishes 135 lb across two boats on 1.5-inch webbing with 88 inches of adjustment per sling. Wide webbing spreads the load along a curve instead of concentrating it at a bracket, which is genuinely kinder to soft plastic than two narrow arms.

There is a third option and it is worth naming honestly: a free-standing frame, which needs no wall and no ceiling at all. Suspenz publishes one at 125 lb per boat with a 24-inch square footprint per tower. It is also several times the price of either product above, which puts it outside what this site is for, so we have not ranked it — but if you rent and cannot drill anything, it exists and it is the answer.

What the listings do not tell you about installing either

Studs are not where you want them. They are on 16-inch centers and your boat is not. Both arms of a wall rack have to land on structure, which means the spacing between your two racks is decided by your wall, not by your hull — and if the resulting spacing is near the ends of the boat, move them and accept a less tidy look.

Masonry is an extra purchase. Suspenz sells a TapCon screw set separately for concrete. A lot of garages are block, and finding this out at the wall with the box open is annoying.

A hung boat swings. Slings solve the load problem and introduce a movement problem. In a single garage where a car door opens beneath it, a suspended hull is a repeated small collision rather than a theoretical one. Hang it against a wall, not over the parking bay.

Ratchets are still wrong. The same rule that applies on a roof applies on a wall: a ratchet can deform a polyethylene hull, and a stored boat is under load for months rather than hours. Use the integrated straps or cam buckles — the reasoning is in the tie-down strap roundup.

Measure the building before you measure the boat

Almost every storage rack that gets returned was bought without three numbers.

Wall length available, at the height you want it. Not the length of the wall — the clear length between the light switch, the shelf bracket and the door swing. A 12-foot kayak needs its two support points somewhere in the middle six feet, and a garage wall rarely offers six clear feet at chest height.

Stand-off depth. Suspenz publishes 20 inches of arm extension on the EZ Rack, and a boat on it will project further than that because hulls are wider at the beam than the arm is long. In a single garage, 20 inches of wall plus a hull is a meaningful bite out of the space beside the car.

Ceiling height, if you are hanging. Malone publishes 88 inches of adjustment per sling on the SlingTwo, which is generous, but the relevant figure is what is left underneath. A boat hung low enough to reach is a boat you walk into.

The fourth measurement people miss entirely is the route. A 12-foot hull has to be turned, tilted and lifted into position, and that maneuver needs more clearance than the final resting place does. Walk it through with a broom handle before you drill.

Winter is when the damage happens

A boat used weekly is inspected weekly, whether you mean to or not. The same boat stored for five months is not, and three things go wrong in that window.

Water gets in and freezes. A hull stored right way up outside collects rain through a hatch seal or a scupper, and water that freezes expands. Stored upside down or on its side, it drains. This is the strongest argument for the storage position rule, and it is seasonal rather than constant.

Rodents move in. A dark, dry, enclosed hull is attractive accommodation, and foam bulkheads and seat padding are nesting material. Upside down with the hatches off is far less appealing than right way up with them sealed.

Straps stay tight for five months. This is the one people cause themselves. A storage strap needs to hold the boat against falling, not clamp it to the rack. Snug is enough; cranked down is five months of point loading on a soft hull, which is the same creep problem the rack was bought to solve.

Loosen the straps a turn when the boat goes away for winter, and check it once mid-season. That costs nothing and prevents the most common self-inflicted deformation there is.

Outdoors, if you have no choice

Plenty of people have no garage, and the honest advice is not “buy a garage.”

Off the ground, on its side, under cover, out of direct sun, and not wrapped in a tarp that touches the hull. That last point catches people: a tarp laid straight onto plastic traps condensation against it and holds heat, which does more harm over a summer than the sun it was blocking. Rig the cover over a line or a frame so air moves under it.

Suspenz publishes a marine-grade black finish with stainless hardware alongside the standard powder-coated yellow, which is the version to buy if the rack itself is living outside in salt air.

Whatever is holding the boat, check the deck fittings and cord at the same time. Cord perishes in UV faster than hulls do, and a used boat that has been stored outside almost always needs it replaced — covered in what to fix on a used kayak.

Two boats, and the mistake of stacking them

Both products here are sold for two hulls, and both handle the second boat the same way: a second tier, not a second boat on the first one.

Stacking one kayak directly on another is the storage version of the flat-spot problem, and it is worse, because now the lower hull carries its own weight plus another 50 to 70 pounds at whatever two points the upper hull happens to touch. Over a winter that is exactly the constant point load that makes polyethylene take a set.

If you have two boats and one rack, the answer is a second rack lower down rather than a taller pile. Suspenz publishes its free-standing frames as expandable to six watercraft in stacked tiers for the same reason: every hull gets its own supports.

The exception is a pair of boats stored on edge, gunwale to gunwale, in a cradle wide enough for both. On edge the load runs through the strongest part of each hull and neither is bearing the other.

What we would buy

If you have a stud wall, the Suspenz EZ Rack. The 20-inch stand-off and the padded arms are what you are paying for, and 125 published pounds is roughly double any recreational hull.

If you have a ceiling, or you rent, the Malone SlingTwo. It is a fraction of the price, the wide webbing is gentle on plastic, and getting a boat off a garage floor is most of the benefit available here.

If you have neither, two padded sawhorses at the thirds and a cover rigged off the hull will out-perform a bad rack. The rack is the convenient way to follow the rule, not the rule itself.