[Paddlewise] "J" cradles --- was British Heavies

There's a segue in here somewhere.  

I share in the pain of lifting British Heavies onto car tops.  Have for ten years.  My somewhat modified Pintail weighs in close to 70 pounds, I think.  Feels a lot heavier after a long paddle.  When I bought my Audi A4 "Avant" (read: wagon, but we don't say that) last fall, I wanted to minimize the pain of lifting the Pintail up onto the roof, and I think I've found a good solution.

Malone of Maine (www.maloneofmaine.com ... pretty clever, huh?) makes a very simple, very robust "J" cradle system for carrying kayaks on edge at about a 45 degree angle; the outer lip of the cradle is only about three inches above the height of the bar --- as opposed to five or six inches with Yak or Thule cradles --- and the cradle can be mounted fairly close to the outer end of the bars, depending on your system, of course.  This allows a relatively easy lift on and off the rack; to lift the kayak off, very little vertical lifting is involved, since you basically roll the boat up to a 90 degree position from a nominal 45 degree position, and slide it over both cradle edges simultaneously or one cradle first and then the other.  Loading is equally simplified.  It eliminates almost all of the lift --- hey, a couple of inches at that height and extension is a lot! --- and most of the extension needed to safely drop a kayak into a set of conventional cradles from the side, and !
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virtually all of the lifting to take the boat down.  Nice system --- but pricey!  One set of cradles goes for just under $100.  They're solid, about half inch thick, five inch wide composite material, with closed cell foam on the inside --- which you can easily augment to custom fit your hull if you want ---, slots at the top and base for the one inch straps that come with the cradles (although I upgraded to one and a half inch NRS straps for better support and because the slots accomodated that width easily) and include all the mounting hardware you'll need for conventional round (Yak) or rectangular "Euro" (Thule) bars.  (Of course, I've augmented my mounting system a little, too, but that's the fun of it.)  The aerodynamics of these things seems simple --- somewhat less drag than conventional cradles --- and the logistics, since the kayak rides on edge at about a 45 degree angle, allows better use of bar length.  I can easily get two boats and probably two bikes on my Audi,!
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 where, with my Yak gear, two boats would be about it.

Nice folks --- I think one of the principals may have become a PaddleWise list-lurker --- with a serious interest in paddlers, paddles and paddling.  Speed of delivery may not be their strongest asset --- my observation as well as a couple of retailers I know --- but, in my case, the company had to modify the installation hardware to accomodate a wider crossbar, and that could easily explain the delays I saw.  Off the shelf installations for conventional crossbars should be a lot easier and quicker.  Looks to me like a solid, almost elegant, visually low-impact, physically low-back-impact, long term solution to carrying my ten year old Pintail around for another ten years.

Standard PaddleWise disclaimer --- no connection with the company, paid for the gear, etc., etc.  Just a satisfied customer .....

Jack Martin
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