Carpeted wood bars
Hey, that was how we transported our first sea kayaks for the first few years on the first trailer. Simple and no-maintenance, but unfortunately not great for holding kayaks in place securely. They would always move some, even if strapped tightly. After that, I used some homemade wood-and-minicell cradles designed specifically for a S&G kayak I built. They kindasorta fit my other sea kayak. After that, I tried carrying the kayak hull-down on minicell blocks (safe enough but again the kayak tended to move around), then went to Thule J cradles (did not fit the sea kayaks well), then to Malone J Autoloaders, which were excellent until the rubber ribbed pads hardened. Later, one of the Malones cracked.
Then it was back to the minicell foams. Funny how I seem to end up going back to those, though they’re not perfect. With the new trailer, I am going to try carrying the sea kayak two ways with the minicell blocks: (1) On its side, sitting on half a minicell block–the kayak is sitting in the shed now like this, and (2) with the hull down sitting on a full minicell block just like we have done in the past, but this time with the added movement control of riser bars.
For rooftopping, I was lucky to stumble upon the Spring Creek cradles early on. Those have been nothing short of terrific, and we’ve used them for two long road trips carrying long kayaks (5000 miles and 3400 miles). The reason I don’t want to install them on the trailer bars is that they would be too easy to steal.