Please, no jokes about professional help ;-)

Here's the deal.......I have a decked canoe which goes 18ft. and weighs about 65 or 70lbs. On my upcoming Isle Royale trip I intend to use the water taxi every three or four days to deposit my person and equipment at various intervals around the island. They drop your boat on a long cement dock.

The craft is fairly easy to drag but of course the cement is going to eat my stern up in short order. Short of installing a skid plate I wonder if there is a temporary fix. Would several layers of duct tape get me to the waters edge? Probably but maybe there is something better? Something I could just remove easily.

Yup I know I could portage traditionally (the seat turns upside down into a portage yoke) but dragging it sounds lots easier especially after getting it off the dock.

And perhaps I could recruit one of the mates for a tip to get it waters edge but then again maybe not. Rather have matters into my own hand.

So far all I can come up with is duct tape maybe 5 layers thick. Thoughts?

Duct tape is probably the way to go if you don't want to carry the boat into the water.
Concrete will rip right through a skid plate anyway.
Maybe the crew on the taxi will leave it the water if you ask?? You get off and they throw a painter to you and put the boat in the water?

Portage wheel

gorilla tape, t-rex tape, or 3M Heavy Duty
?
that's a nice boat, understand your concern

I'll 2nd the portage wheel idea...they use them on 17' sea kayaks. You can buy one or cobble something together.

dr bob

btw... I tried duct tape to help save canoes on portages...sound like a great idea until you try to get the stuff off...
don't think I will do that again..

dr bob

When my bow gets a little bit beat up or want to prevent it getting beat up I just mix up a little fiberglass epoxy and put it on the bow, and it works great for many years. This is without using fiberglass cloth. A nice film goes a long ways.

Thanks for the advice.

No wheels allowed........And I bet getting the duct tape off, as per Dr. Bobs experience, might violate my "No hassles" credo. Maybe there is another type of tape which comes off easier? Hippo patch type tape might work?

I sort of like Pine Trees advice with tape as a back up. It is a rather small contact area.

If this is something that only needs to stay on briefly then you might consider gaffer tape which is designed to peel off without leaving residue. I use the stuff with my camera lenses because it is durable and doesn't make a mess when removed.

FYI (from Wikipedia, natch): Gaffer tape is a heavy cotton cloth pressure-sensitive tape with strong adhesive and tensile properties. It is widely used in theatre, photography, film and television production, and industrial staging work.
While sometimes confused with duct tape, gaffer tape differs in the composition of both the backing, which is made from fabric as opposed to vinyl or other plastics, and the adhesive, which is more resistant to heat and more easily removed without damaging the surface to which it was adhered.

I knew I could count on you Kerry ;-)

..."gaffers tape" "................Who knew?

Could you tape a piece of 2x4 along the bow so that the weight is on the wood and not the tape when you drag it?. Might have to cut a groove to get it to fit better on your canoe. Or a 2X10, put a rope around the bow and tie off on either side of the canoe.

Like a small sled

I like your suggestion Jim.......I was toying in that direction myself but considering something more flexible but don't see why a chunk of wood wouldn't work......maybe sand the edge to get a nice radius.

Wheels sound easiest.....at least to get it off the cement. Then I could drag it to the waters edge. They make just such gadgets for ocean kayaks which disassemble easily for storage.

My two cents would be to make some sort of ski, that could be bulky. Another thought i had would be one of those plastic sleds to drag it on. The ones you roll up.

https://www.amazon.com/Classic-Roll-Up-Sled-Red-54/dp/B016DQTQ3Q/ref=sr_1_19?ie=UTF8&qid=1499297684&sr=8-19&keywords=plastic+sled