How to Hang a Canoe From the Ceiling

If you're hanging a canoe from a ceiling indoors, you'll want the hanging equipment to be less obvious so that the boat is emphasized and not the hanger equipment. Hardwood dowels, eyebolts and threaded rods provide a minimalist solution that avoids the necessity for installing clunky block and tackle rigs, ropes and bulky straps. A little dark paint and this hanger gives you a tasteful way to hang your canoe and even allows you to take it down if you ever want to use the boat.

Stud finder
Tape measure
Drill and 5/8 inch drill bit
8 eye nuts, 5/8 inch
4 all thread rods, 5/8 inch by 42 inches
4 screw hooks, 5/8 inch
2 hardwood dowels, 3/4 inch by 3 feet long
4 screw on steel pipe caps, 3/4 inch inner diameter

Instructions

- 1
  Measure the distance between the canoes front and rear thwarts. Use the stud finder to find ceiling joists about the same distance apart. Mark the joists.
- 2
  Mark and predrill two pairs of holes in the ceiling above the points where the front and rear thwarts will hang for the ceiling hooks. The hook pairs should be slightly farther apart than the beam of the canoe at the thwarts. Screw the four hooks into the ceiling.
- 3
  Assemble the rods by screwing a female threaded eye nut onto each end of each all-thread rod. Hang one end of each rod from a hook in the ceiling.
- 4
  Screw pipe caps on both ends of the hardwood dowels. The cap threads will dig into the wooden dowel ends and hold the cap in place. Feed the dowels through the lower eyebolts of the forward and aft pairs of hanging rods.
- 5
  Hang the canoe by removing the dowel, lifting the forward end above the eyebolts and reinserting the dowel. Lower the gunwales onto the dowel. The caps will keep the dowel from slipping out of the eyebolts.
- 6
  Remove the dowel from the aft eyebolts. Lift the aft section of the canoe above the eyebolts and reinsert the dowel so the gunwales rest on top of it.

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