I carried my friend's new 16 foot canoe on the roof of my car today for a short trip just outside the city. He had four foam blocks which were easily located fore and aft of the sunroof, and since the MINI has no window frames on the doors, it was very easy to pass a couple of straps through the front of the car to anchor it.

That was where the cakewalk ended, however. I couldn't find a single suitable anchoring point on either the front or rear of the car to pass a 1" strap through. We ended up not bothering since we were only going about 7 miles at low speed (30 mph), and it did feel fairly secure with the two straps anchoring it as far apart as possible through the door openings.

I know there's the tow hook that can be installed in the back, but are there any other anchoring points I should look for? In order to get up to highway speeds, obviously it needs to be anchored at the front and rear.

I have a Cooper (non-S), by the way.

 

The is a point in front for a tow hook also (in the lower grill area) but the mini only comes with one. You'd need to find another. MINI should make an attachment that would give canoes some support that goes more fore/aft for the longer canoes. Would hate to see a canoe *snap* in the middle.

There'd be a market in Hawaii for something that would allow 20' canoes to be carried.

 

I know nothing about carrying canoes....but there is a tow hook spot on the rear of the car too(in the bumper)....dont know if that helps

 

Thanks for the info. I hadn't noticed that little tab in the front grill that MotorMouth mentioned. I'll have to look into getting another tow hook. Can't wait to see what MINI charges for those.

I don't think a canoe would ever snap riding on the MINI. We've got a nice long, flat roof, so it's possible to anchor it at points where there's not that much weight hanging off the front or rear. This canoe only weighed 60 pounds, so I wasn't too concerned, but all the same, we pulled over fairly often to check it out.

I wish I took a picture! The canoe was brand new and a similar color to hyper blue, so it looked pretty cool on my chili red Cooper.

What's up with the tow hooks being so far from the center of the car?

 

Here's my 16 foot sea kayak on the factory rack using both tow hooks as tie-down points!

 

Yucca, that's very nice, but I'm afraid your (admittedly fine) kayak clashes a bit with your car's paint. This canoe looked very nice on my car, in a Fisher Price kind of way.

Where'd you get the second tow hook? Dealer? Classic MINI?

 

yes, the kayak does clash with my MINI! I chose the bright yellow color to increase the chance that a speedboat might see me before running me over!

I got my second tow hook from a dealer's parts counter. I was lucky because the guy looked up the price, thought that it was way too expensive (something like $35) and then said he thought there were some kicking around the shop. He found one and gave it to me!

 

Cool, I will try to rustle up a similar deal on one. Thanks!

 

My dealer has buckets of tow hooks, bigger than the ones that come with the car, but same thread. I wanted to have 2 to leave installed for the winter. I did not want the big one they were willing to just give me. So I ordered one.

$45 CND, they sold it to me for $30. Now I just have to figure out what colour to paint them

 

I might paint mine BRG. I have left both of mine installed and have not had a problem with them disappearing. i suspect that they might if I painted them red!

 

If you cant find a free one as mentioned, try www.outmotoring.com. I dont know the price, but i know i saw them selling them a while ago.

 

Yucca, Your yellow kayak does NOT clash with your BRG MINI at all. It DOES remind some of us older folks of Jim Clark and his Lotus that was such a revolutionary car in the mid 60's.



So wear your yellow kayak with pride!