Design work to keep the shop clean, and protect my canoes...

I haven't managed to get much shop time in for the last several days due to work, and the gym. So the time I have been spending has been at the computer, doing some simple design work in Sketchup...

Now the design isn't 100% finished, but it's close enough to share. I am modifying a design I had seen someone else build online...

If you scroll back in time to my first iteration of my shop, you might recall the ever present canoe hanging from the ceiling. A 2004 Pelican 146-DLX to be specific. Now this boat is far from perfect, but with the webbed ash seats and thwart it is a LOT better than the Discovery 155 it replaced that had the cheap plastic seats break out the second time I put it in the water. Yeah so canoes and fat guys aren't a great mix...

Anyway, in order to free up shop space, the canoe had to go into the yard. I donated a pair of old 2x4 sawhorses for this purpose.

After that took place, my brother in law went through a divorce, was able to keep his canoe, but lost his place to keep it... Guess where it went?

So now I have a Pelican Excursion 146-DLX, and an Old Town unknown model, but the size is another 14' 6" plastic boat. The Old town is rigged for a sail. And I want to build a 15' cedar strip slow water touring canoe.  I need a way to store these things!

So googling "Canoe Rack Design" I came up with the following blog entry from a Canadian guy that built one, admittedly not using Pressure treated, but the design looked fair enough.

Source : http://www.wildpaddler.ca/2010/05/i-just-built-canoe-rack.html

There are a couple of minor tweaks I would want to make, specifically the diagonal cross bar controls racking in only one direction, and if I were to build the rack 8' long, would require it be cut from a 16' 2x4 which would push the price of the build up higher than I want to go... Especially since I have pressure treated material to reclaim that needs a purpose...

I am designing mine to be 8' 3" wide x 72" tall x 45" deep. Aside from the upright diagonal braces my design is more or less done. 

As you can see I made mine a bit taller. I may adjust the final height, but for now this should work. I also added shorter diagonal braces on all 4 corners to keep it square. I have not decided yet, but I am leaning toward using an actual brace plate at the conrers to even further guarantee it stays in square.

I need to talk a friend that sews into doing me a huge favor, which is to sew giant zippered Tyvek protector bags for the boats. I have them covered with cheap Harbor Freight poly tarps, but those don't last but maybe a season or two, and they do nothing to protect the boats from critters...