Re: [Paddlewise] Roof Racks

Geoff wrote: <Snip>>>>>>>A trip to Bahia de Gonzaga in Baja ripped the
factory
rails out fo the roof, though still firmly attached to the Yakima gear.
Made
my $150 doller trip into an $800+ trip, as body work was required to fix it.
Major bummer. <Snip><<<<<<

Kevin asked:
>>>>>Do you know what caused the roof rails to pull out?  Heavy cross winds,
bouncing over rough roads, driving into the garage without removing the
kayak, ... ?<<<<<<

I'm curious as well. My bet is that there were not any bow and stern lines
from the front and back of the car to the kayaks (or if there were they were
very loose at the time the rack was damaged). That combined with the rough
roads and sudden weight changes (due to the kayaks) from the front to back
on the rack. I've had some experience with those same Baja roads. I even
managed to deform the rain gutters a little on an 1986 Toyota Van by
bottoming out the springs (more accurately, torsion bars) several times on
those roads. I also put a huge dent in that Toyota's oil pan in the Gonzaga
area. Of course, I had three singles with a lot of the gear in each kayak up
there on the racks.  That just might have had something to do with the
damage.

Speaking of cars and kayakers, I sure miss rain gutters. Maybe this is the
issue we should all write our congressmen and car companies about :-).
Either bring back rain gutters on cars or make decent factory racks that are
suitable for carrying three or four kayaks (to encourage carpooling and less
vehicles needed for long shuttles--if you want to argue "green"). I think it
was the mileage requirements that were instrumental in eliminating rain
gutters on most cars in the first place though. The slight added drag from
rain gutters would hurt a little on compliance testing. Of course, in the
real world, those paddlers who leave their kayak racks on the car all the
time are busy trying to make up for any gas savings due to no rain gutters
being on most cars.
We could make it a sales issue with the car companies. I eliminated half of
the minivans (of the four available back in 1986) from consideration because
they didn't have rain gutters.

Matt Broze
www.marinerkayaks.com
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