Ever wonder what would might happen if you boat flew off the roof of your car at 65mph? I've got some photos.

I was traveling north on Interstate 89 in Vermont and the bungees holding my Guillemot L to the J-racks let go. I heard a WUMP and looked up and the boat was gone. In the rearview mirror I saw it lying in the thick grass to the right side of the road and pulled over on the shoulder. This was awful but that is the end of the bad news.

Inspecting the boat it appeared that the bow/front part of the strap had let go. The J-racks being on the right side of the car had allowed the boat to be flung to the right and it must have landed stern first on the shoulder. This ripped a chunk of wood and fiberglass about 6" long from the stern hull just behind the skeg and about 2 feet in front of the point of the stem. The boat then skidded into the 12" grass about 20-30' off the roadway and coming to rest rightside up. In addition to the torn out chunk of stern there was some cracks in the glass along the base of the skeg box where it is joined to the hull and some cracks in the stern deck caused by the skeg box being shoved into the deck.

I loaded the boat onto the car and secured it a bit better and headed on to Burlington, Vermont. I had an errand to run for a friend and just accross the street was an outfit called "Canoe Imports" in South Burlington, Vermont. They offered me a strip of bituminated aluminum that we used to hold the torn stern chunk into the boat. and we installed some bow and stern lines to hold the boat to the car better. I purchased some duct tape to cover some of the lesser scuffs and picked up my friend in Plattsburgh, NY and we headed off to Cranberry lake where we we had a great weekend, kayak camping, on one of New Yorks finer lakes.

Thank you to the folks at Canoe Imports for salvaging my weekend.
http://canoeimports.com/htm/instruction.html

Thank you to the Powers-that-Be for not putting the boat through someone's windshield at 65 mph.