I use Yakima straps.
What do you do with excess length of say front or rear tie downs? I wrap them like candy cane on taunt strap and tie off with nylon string or tie wrap at bottom. Any trick ideas? Thanks
Hot knife.
For straps going around boat (as opposed to the bow and stern ties down ropes) I use straps that are long enough to make a second lap around the boat. Extra length gets folded up and stuffed between tight strap and boat or under a decent bungee on kayak.
Another nice thing about Thule’s Hullavator is each cradle contains a pocket with a velcro flap to house strap excess. Excess tie-down rope is run through the carabiner, wrapped, then secured with a bowline knot.
No excess with a truckers hitch for the front tie down, for which l use rope. The remaining line gets run around the main line and the hitch is at a distance to leave with jusr a few wraps/loops whatever needed. For leftover strap around the boat, l just run the strap back around the side rail and keep creating a baic knot around itself until l am out of strap. Never had one come loose.
Around the Yakima bars and hull by saddles I use up the straps around the bars. I take the short Yakima strap with loop through bow eye. Not keen on cutting straps in case I need them long.
That makes me look insane. Race car I would roll up excess and tie wrap roll to taunt strap which looked nester.
I simply daisy-chain any extra strap length and slip in under the kayak’s deck bungees.
If there is a lot of excess strap length, I will run it forward or back from around the rack crossbar to a thwart, grab loop, or some other anchor point on the boat and tie it off with half hitches. This will help prevent accidental forward or rearward movement of the boat on the rack, especially the former during a hard stop. Front and rear tie downs resist fore and aft movement to an extent, but because they run at a considerable angle, they do not do so as effectively as a “dead man” line.
I don’t have much excess as I have color coded length trimmed strap sets for each boat. The 10-12 inches of excess are easily addressed with a half hitch or two around the running strap.