I recently did some shopping for a boat cart. Our family has a canoe and I am currently building a small sail boat. I needed something to help me roll the boat in an out of the garage as I worked on it, and something to help get the canoe and all of our gear down to the water a little easier.

I was happy to find that the one with the best combination of features for my needs was also the least expensive.

The ones I didn't buy tended to have spindly aluminum frames, whimpy "kick stands", and cheap plastic wheels and tires. They ranged in price from $120 to $170.

The InSTEP Boat Cart that I did buy had a painted welded steel frame, 16 inch bicycle wheels and nobby tires, a very rugged and reliable kick stand, adjustable pad width, and the ability to fold up and fit easily in a boat if necessary. The price was $99.00 from my local Sportsman's Surplus store. I found it was also available online from several sources including L.L. Bean.

The pads that support the boat where made of pipe insulation and were not "sticky" enough to stay put under the boat so I replaced them by wraping some yoga mat style foam around the steel tubular boat supports and securing it with contact cement.

The cart came with a nice strap with a cam lock similar to the popular tie-down straps people use to tie boats on top of their cars. The strap was plenty long enough to reach around my sail boat and have a few feet left over.

I've been using the cart the last few days to roll the boat around my yard as I work on it -- sometimes into the sun to heat the hull up for gluing and sometimes into the shade to keep from bubbling the epoxy.

Today was the first real test. Linda and I took Linda's sister and her six month old daughter on an early spring mess about. We headed up into a valley with several lakes. Once we found one without ice on it we were in business. The state park lake access site was still closed for the season so we parked at the locked gate about 200 yards from the water's edge. Linda and I are always trying to do outdoor things too early in the spring, but that's another story. We fliped the canoe off of the car and onto the cart in one smooth move. From there we rolled the boat around to the tailgate of the car and proceeded to dump all the junk from the car into the boat. We were well prepared. We didn't want to take any chances while we had the baby with us, so we had a huge dry bag of extra clothing, one with two sleeping bags, another with fire starter and first aid stuff. Then there was the bag of baby care stuff, water bottles for everyone, extra life jackets, and food. For a one hour paddle along the shoreline, we were pretty well equipped.

With a fairly heavy load, we wheeled the the canoe-turned-wheelbarrow down some steep and bumpy gravel roads to the edge of the lake. The wheels rode over bumps with ease. The whole process was effortless. at the water's edge we slid the canoe with its pile of stuff right off the cart into the water.

Returning to the car was done with equal ease.

So here is the quick run down:

Good:

Price
-Large air-filled tires
-Bicycle wheels with bearings
-Very sturdy construction
-Solid kick stand
-Adjustable supports
-Nice strap included
-Folds nicely

Bad:
-May be prone to rusting with steel frame (I wouldn't ever want to submerge it)
-Bearings needed adjustment during initial assembly
-Pads are cheap and should be replaced with something nicer.

I just noticed when I went to get this link that it appears there is now an aluminum version of the same cart for $25.00 more.

http://www.llbean.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CategoryDisplay?&storeId=1&catalogId=1&langId=-1&categoryId=34179&sc1=Search&feat=sr