New Rack Design

The other day I was looking at different saddles and such for the major rack systems, and I thought of an idea. I thought maybe you could use a padded rail system. The boat straps could be connected to the rails with adjustable sliders that would you allow to move the straps anywhere you want along the two main rails. The benefit is that with 5 or 6 foot rails… you’d be able to strap your kayak down at the bulkheads. This would prevent deflecting the hull in most sea kayaks. It would also allow people with short crossbar spacing to carry longer kayaks. I think it would even be possible to mount Hulley rollers on the back crossbar, between the rails. I decided to create a 3d model of my idea:



http://www.thedigipics.com/pics/rack1.jpg



Just thought I would share my idea and see what people thought about it.

suggestion
the rails are parallel, while hull lines on sea kayaks hardly ever are



I had a somewhat similar idea - rail system with sliding crossbar/crossflat. This way the support could be moved under bulkheads.



Then I put numbers together ( for a fixed system), and it was cheaper to buy OTS.

Look at KayakPro
Saddles spread apart on long bars attatched to cross bars.



Lots of ways to do this. I have pretty narrow rack spacing and may eventually come up with something similar that would work with the unique bars I have.

A solution in search of a problem?
Why do you feel you need to stap your boat(s) at the bulkheads? I’ve never done than and it’s never caused a problem with plastic, fiberglass or skin-on-frame boats.