I recently acquired a new fishing kayak. A riot mako 10. It is much heavier than my sit in so I got lucky and picked a malone telos system (lift assist to j hook)
I am having a hell of a time getting it to stay put on the car. 1 strap for each j hook and bow and stern straps.my problem is that no matter how hard I strap it down…it wants to rotate outwards away from the J hooks. It was quite scary when we hit a dip and heard it move. Glad I was on a back road.
Any help would be appreciated. My wife’s kayak seems to be rock steady on the Js so far. Worried about putting it on top of there and hitting the highway. Its staying in the garage until I can figure this out.
I will post pictures of the setup and if it will let me…a video showing how I can rotate the yak towards edge of car
For starters I would cross the bow and stern lines to the other side of the car from where the boat is. The size and shape of the boat is already a bit of an issue in those J’s. Having the bow and stern lines pull it further out is not helping.
Yes it is in your line of vision. I travel with my bow line(s) crossed in front of the windshield all the time. You get used to it. Do the same with your wife’s boat.
Overall tilted back a bit would be better than the straight up position encouraged by those Js. Kind of a Hail Mary, or a totally useless idea, but what if you faced the boat hull out? Don’t suppose there is enough width to put some swimming pool noodles up and lay it flat…
Unfortunately, I would venture to say that the boat is just TOO WIDE for those particular J-hooks. Coupled w/ the fact that the J-hooks seem to curve BACK, toward the boat, therein propping the boat more upright—instead of a nice, relaxed gangsta lean—probably lends to the boat not traveling well.
I would consider looking into the Yakima JayLow. The upright is approximately 20” tall which would sufficiently exceed the halfway width of your hull & not recurve back like your current set of J-hooks.
FWIW, I transport my 34” wide WS tandem SOT on a set of Yakima JayLows w/o issue—aside from the 13-1/2” length & 88lb girth being a bit much to handle up top on the rack during high winds @ speedier highway speeds.
I would not carry such wide heavy boats on J-racks, especially those too-flexible ones and at highway speeds. Get longer cross bars so that you can lay the boats flat on the car. Sell the J-racks to pay for the long bars. Yes, you will have to get used to dodging the ends so you don’t poke your eye out on a short car, but it is do-able. I had extra long Thule bars on my Volvo wagon for years so I could carry two wider kayaks.
