Will,

Every boat I've ever cartopped on its wales has always had the wood damaged, some more than others. The only way I've found to avoid that is to trailer the boat.

Or you could decide that you don't care and consider the wales to be sacrificial parts that you'll be repairing every now and then.

Your ideas will definitely help limit the damage, but not eliminate it altogether (unless there's something unique about the NE Dory that I've never seen on other boats).

Good luck,

Laszlo

If you cartop something shaped like a wing it might be better to put it so the lift is pushing the car down instead of lifting it up....  I used to cartop my kayak, upside down the car started to feel unstable over 50 mph, right side up I could go 70 with no feeling of loss of control.

If you didn't have the spacered inwales then the regular gunwales would be subject to the same abrasion. I'm cartopping the dory with plain gunwales. I haven't noticed any damage.

The boat is sitting on square tubes covered with pipe insulation (which is falling apart).