just got a used Subaru Forester just for kayaking & trying to decide between the Yakima Hully rollers or the THule Hydroglide 875 XT for rear loading of my Eddyline Night hawk. Any opinions out there ?
rack options
I have the Hully Rollers on Yakima bars. I’ve had no problems with them, but I might mention a couple of idiosyncrasies that I’ve noted over the years.
The rollers work fine when the boat is dry. When loading a wet boat, I find that the boat slides so easily, that the rollers don’t even turn. This is neither a good nor a bad thing; just something that happens. Maybe a poly boat with more abrasion on the bottom might give more ‘grip’ to the rollers, I don’t know.
Second, about every five or six times that I have the boat on the roof, I have to straighten the rollers on the round bars. They have a tendency to rotate around the bar, especially when loading, as the boat is coming up at an angle and the rollers tend to rotate back on the bar to accommodate the loading angle. If they rotate far enough, you find that they leave very little clearance between the boat and the top of the car. Tightening the clamps doesn’t seem to make much difference: maybe putting sandpaper between the bar and the roller clamps might help, but I haven’t found that it’s enough of a nuisance to get my sorry ass in gear to try solving the issue.
If you like to leave the rack on the car when not carrying a boat, you might find that the rollers create a bit of extra wind noise (and wind resistance). I don’t know whether the Thule option would be any better. (I remove my bars when there isn’t a boat loaded, but I know many others just leave the rack in place for the entire season.)
Hope this helps in your decision…
–
Darryl
I never liked the
Hully Rollers because I had a folding boat and they indented the hull too much. I chose the Hydro-glide because it was ONLY meant as a means to get the boat onto the saddles; not as both a means to get it up that and a saddle once it was loaded.
A couple of my boats are also on the heavy side, so I like the idea that they are actually “cradled” and not merely resting on top of something. YMMV…
Hydroglide
I have been using the Thule “Set to Go” system on Xsporter racks for a couple of years now. Are you saying that my boats are NOT supposed to sit on the Hydroglide saddles? I have hauled lots of boats up there and traveled quite a few miles including interstate highways. Do you mean that my boat should sit on the bar between the Hydroglides? I can’t believe that I have been doing it wrong all this time and nobody told me 
No
I was talking about how the Hully Rollers act as both a roller/loading device and a saddle, but they don’t ‘cradle’ the boat; the boat simply rests on top, instead. This works for some people, of course, but I just don’t like it.
The Thule system is what I use, as well, and I prefer it that way. Once you load the boat over the roller, there is actually a traditional saddle to cradle the boat. That’s what I meant.
Subaru bars
If you are trying to mount these to the factory bars, the Hydroglides will work out of the box but the Hully-Rollers will need an adaptor.
See you on the water,
Marshall
The River Connection, Inc.
Hyde Park, NY
www.the-river-connection.com
thanks
Thanks; knew I would get different views. kinda leaning toward hydroglide saddles. Mounting them to Yakima bars with Yakima landshark in front.
thanks
Thanks; knew I would get different views. kinda leaning toward hydroglide saddles. Mounting them to Yakima bars with Yakima landshark in front.
Rollerloader
Check out the Rollerloader.It works great on my SUV.
I found it on this website.
website
I did not get the website
rollerloader
Here on paddlng.net look under Kayaking/gear & accesories /boat transport/car racks and look for rollerloader.
rollerloader
Here on paddlng.net look under Kayaking/gear & accesories /boat transport/car racks and look for rollerloader.
hulley rollers
– Last Updated: Jul-22-09 11:20 PM EST –
this is my third season w. them and I am pretty delighted w. the whole Yakima set up (I have 48" bars, rollers, Mako saddles on 4 QTowers and Qclips, with tower locks. Added a fairing after Year 1, all on a Toyota Matrix). I know you do not need the towers. I have heard equally good things about Thule but since you asked about Hulley rollers....
Keeping them clean, like any moving part, is good. I take them off midway and at the end of the season and soak them good in Simple Green or similiar cleaner. I have even worked a little bit of 303 Aerospace on the flat surfaces of the rollers. When I wash my car I give them and the saddles a good shot w. the highest hose pressure I can get. You prolly already know that you should not be taking any glides, rollers or saddles, Thule or Yakima, thru a car wash. The bars and towers are fine, I leave mine on all year and they go thru an automated wash just fine.
My kayaks are long and light. They have not been dinged by the rollers nor scratched by the saddles. Part of it might be they weigh less. Part of it might be the art of tightening down enough to make good contact but not so much that you create unintentional tattoos on your boat!
My C-clamps don't move or rotate around the bars. I am a little runt of a woman w. blunt nosed pliers, but somehow I manage to tighten them enough. I make sure the turnbolts line up perpendicular to the bars in the perhaps misguided supposition that they present a minimal surface to the wind. In any case, they don't move. Periodically I check the bolts and sometimes they need a quarter or half turn. That's it. I just consider it part of a trip check.
I think my hearing is holding up pretty good and with everything tightened down properly there is just nothing whistling up there. I've driven thousands of hwy miles by now and some of it w. the sunroof open. It may be that some roof designs are whistlers and the bars accentuate that. I added the fairing basically bec. it looks cool and it cost me less than $20 on clearance.
tho you didn't ask, definitely get locks on whatever system you have. These systems are expensive but some drunk or crackhead will tear them off and sell them for $25 worth of scrap.
Lastly, and this may or may not be a factor, I've called Yakima three times - to register, to get spare fairing fittings, and just last month to replace a defective turnstile key on one bolt (the C clamp stayed in place,it was just a PITA to move it over when we had to re-space for two boats)
I got thru in way less than a minute to a helpful person who got then fulfilled my request in a happy way and got everything mailed to me faster than they predicted. And of course they didn't charge me for the turnstile heads and sent me four new ones even tho I only asked for one.
Gotta love Yakima for that.