Garage Gator electric kayak hoist review

For many years I've used pulleys and climbing rope to lift my fishing kayaks up to the ceiling of my garage for storage.  But this system has always made me a bit nervous, because if a rope slips out of my hand while I'm raising or lowering a kayak, the kayak would come crashing down on me and on the floor, possibly injuring me and damaging the kayak.

So I bought a "Garage Gator" electric kayak hoist.  And I'm real happy that I did.  I wheel my kayak into my garage on a cart, lower the hoist's bar down to the kayak, hook the straps around the kayak, hit the button, and raise the kayak up to the ceiling.  It's easy, it's safe, and for me it was worth the money. A picture of the hoist in use is shown below. The hoist claims to have a 220 pound capacity. There are a lot of Youtube videos which show the hoist in action, such as the following:

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I made one substitution and one modification to the hoist system.  The substitution is because the straps used to carry kayaks are currently out of stock, so I used the straps from my previous manual system.  The modification is because my garage has a 9'4" ceiling, and the kayak ended up hanging lower than I preferred, because (a) the winch box hangs 8" down from the ceiling, (b) the hardware which can be used to level the bar, a picture of which is shown below, lowers the bar another 6 inches, and (c) the disc which engaged the cut-off switch takes up another couple of inches.  I removed the leveling hardware, which raised the kayak to a level which I prefer.

Installing the hoist is about the amount of work you might expect would be required to screw a bunch of hardware into the ceiling of a garage.  The biggest hassle was locating the joists under the drywall ceiling so I could install the lag screws which hold the system right into the center of each joist. There are Youtube videos which show the installation process.

After some internet shopping, I bought the hoist from Redline, which had the best price.

Thanks for posting.

That looks like a very reliable electric hoist and the price is a lot lower than I'd expect.

I also have been using a manual rope and pulley system for several years now....always worrying that I pull the front pulley from the joist when lifting the kayak. The Garage Gator has a much smoother operation and does not seem to be at risk for this. Last year, due to stupidity/complacency (but mainly stupidity...) I smashed the back of my Hobie from 6+ ft high onto the garage floor when operating the pulley. I expected that I had damaged the kayak beyond repair but to my surprise only the rudder pin had broken.

Mmmm, now seriously thinking if I should get one as well.....