RE: [Paddlewise] Bow lines and racks

 -----Original Message-----
From: dkruger [mailto:dkruger_at_seasurf.com]
Sent: Sunday, June 21, 1998 7:53 AM
To: PaddleWise
Cc: Les Uhrich
Subject: Re: [Paddlewise] Bow lines and racks


Jack_Martin_at_jtif.webfld.navy.mil wrote:

[snip]
>      Was speaking with a Yakima customer service rep yesterday about   kayak
>      racks.  He gave me what sounded like a standard "please always use   bow
>      and stern lines" disclaimer, which grew into a short discussion.
>      Apparently Yak did some tests recently, and discovered that when a
>      vehicle with a sea kayak on the roof passes a semi-truck heading   the
>      opposite direction on a two lane highway, the wind blast created
>      generates a 200 pound instantaneous vertical lift on the boat's   bow.
>      That's a bunch of pounds now trying to lever your boat out of its
>      straps or, as Chuck Sutherland pointed out this morning on his CPA
>      response, the forward rack and boat off the roof!  He was not   speaking
>      hypothetically, apparently.
[snip]

Two hundred pounds of lift could be significant in affecting the
rack-roof connection, all right.  I suspect this was measured at the
point where the rack meets the roof, and *not* the tip of the nose.
(Tougher to measure there.)

Is that what he said, Joq?  I think an unopposed 200 lb force exerted
*at the tip* of a typical FG yak, if the yak is in its usual position in
the rack, would do damage to the gel coat (stress cracks), as a
*minimum.*  I'll test this with *someone else's* yak, not mine, thank
you!  (BTW, I have seen similar "stretch marks" in a kevlar/epoxy yak
which was overtightened at the bow line while in a vehicle rack --
probably produced by much less than 200 lbs of force at the bow.)

If the 200 lbs was measured at the rack position, there is an easy way
to approximately simulate that vertical force:  Most of us can push
upwards with at least 50 lbs of force.  Just push up on the tip of the
bow, and then the tip of the stern, with the effort needed to lift the
average 5-year-old.  Because of the lever arm between the tip of the yak
and the strap position, there should be at least 200 lbs of vertical
force on the straps, I think.

FWIW, I've watched the bow of my FG Wind Dancer "jump" to the side when
meeting a semi at high speed on a two-lane road.  It moves a LOT!
Because the straps I use are rated for about 2000 lbs, and I have a
truck with real rain gutters, so the rack is firmly attached to the
truck, I have not used a bow or stern line.  Probably should, to be
belt-and-suspenders safe, though!

 --
Dave Kruger
Astoria, OR

**************************************************************************  *

I always use bow lines on cross-country trips, but I confess that for
tooling around the city with my kayak, I don't bother.

Here's a rack story of another kind:

Last Friday I left my Accord wagon at the dealer to have the air
conditioning repaired. About mid-morning I got a call saying they might
have damaged my rack when it banged into something over the lift (their
stop sensor went between the bars). I have homemade wood saddles mounted
to a Yakima rack. When I got the car home I noticed that the side plates
on the forward rack towers were sprung and that the towers seemed very
loose; otherwise I couldn't see anything wrong with the towers or
saddles. I decided, though, that I should replace the towers at the
dealer's expense.

Once the front towers were off the car, I discovered why they were so
loose: beneath each tower was a half-inch depression in the roof of the
car roughly the shape of the tower pad! This is the second time I have
had an accident with a Yakima rack, and each time the car has come out
in worse shape than the rack. (The first time, a garbage truck backed
into a canoe that was tied on the car. As the rack was ripped off the
car, the rear towers left deep gouges in the steel gutters, yet only one
tower was damaged.)

My biggest complaint about Yakima racks is that the metal parts don't
stand up well to corrosion, especially here in Minnesota where the roads
are salted every winter.

Gotta go call my dealer.

Chuck Holst

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