|
I've had bad experiences with Thule racks/mtn. bikes, so have avoided that brand. My wife and I have owned Yakima racks since 1982, they are bomber and well designed. I've been carrying kayaks with Yakimas since 1994, mainly with their old-style saddles and have never had any kind of failure. This includes hundreds of miles on Baja washboard and worse. We are now using a Tundra with a "hi-rise" camper shell (about 6" above cab height), and I was a little nervous about the short span (46") between rack mounts on the shell itself carrying a 15' boat. We made one trip two years ago with a Malibu Two and a stack of longboards on only the camper shell racks with no problem, including a run to Agua Verde and the east side of Punta Conception. Last fall my buddy and I rigged-up a double bar setup with 3/4" coated steel gas pipe for a third rack over the center of our crew-cab Tundra roof to get more support for a Trident and a Malibu Two, and to match the height of the other two racks on the taller camper shell. The coated gas pipe is the same OD as the Yakima bar, and works perfectly with their towers, and is much cheaper. I'm trying to attach a photo of the set-up, not sure if it will get on this reply or not (I'm a dork when it comes to computers), anyway, it worked flawlessly on our Nov. trip to the Vizcaino peninsula, including a large dose of strong cross-wind highway driving and wash-boardy dirt roads. Only had to tighten things up one time. (And it paid off with lots of YFT filets in the icebox and a bigger than 50 lb. jurel Dennis caught off his kayak 300 meters from camp.) We had the boats mounted on old style Yakima kayak saddles and a set of those canoe/aluminum boat gunnel pads that work real well if you carry your 'yak upside down on your vehicle. I've got a set of hully-rollers, but I don't think they support the bottom of a kayak well enough to prevent "oil-canning" on rough roads, so I use them around home for the short, mostly paved road jaunts. Hulley rollers also require you to carry your boat right-side up. Depending on the boat, carrying upside down on the roof can be more secure for the long haul. It sure seems to work well for the big fat doubles like the Malibu Two. Bottom line is- use Yakima stuff, it is by far the best for the long haul, I would never consider anything else.
Jim
|