These fit under the hood and work very well.
I use a trailer now for canoes. I used to take a couple of pieces of nylon rope and tied them around the frame in a loop. You can use the bumper brackets also. I left them on my truck all the time. They were used to secure the bow of my canoes. Very important for driving on the highway with trucks coming the other way.
I used to use 50" Saris load bars on attached to the factory rails. Hauled 2 kayaks cockpit down centered on the load bars. I had eye bolts in the center of the load bars and strapped the kayaks separately with cam buckle straps. Never had a problem. One was 13’8" the other 10 foot. Only needed to strap front nad back on the longer yak.
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for under the hood attachment, I took some 1 inch tubular climbing strap and took a heated nail ,put a hole in the flat strap with it doubled. Then used one of the bolts holding the fender to the frame, The looped end sticks out from under the hood and provides a tie down point on each side.
BTW I like the Yakima round bars for the ability to rotate the saddles or the J to fit the angle of the hulls better. My kayaks don’t tend to be flat so my saddles shouldn’t be either. YMMV
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I used the Yakima bars on the trailer I put together for that very reason. It can be a PIA when loading boats on tall vehicles, though.
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When I load the J , I do it from the back. The J tips back, and I slide the kayak up . When it gets up a bit , the J tips forward and the kayak rests on both. I like the way the round bars allow the racks to conform with the hull.
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Roym, what is that boat in the middle? It’s right on the tip of my brain but I can’t quite seem to place it.
All three of those kayaks are Anas Acuta’s by Valley
I just use some poly line to make loops to the hood hinges for the bow lines. It costs almost nothing.
I’m curious if @High_Desert, or anyone else has any updated thoughts on the Swagman Exo Aero kayak carrier?
I just bought a Delta 12.10 today and now need to buy a carrier. My vehicle has the OEM cross rails and after measuring today, I only have about 30" between the towers, or whatever the vertical pieces are called. The vast majority of the time we will only be carrying our kayak, but we have friends that also own a kayak and j racks, but their vehicle with roof rails isn’t super reliable for longer trips. So it would be nice to be able to put their kayak on our roof, using their j racks and they could drive their other car if we wanted to go for a group paddle.
Our dealer recommended using a saddle-style rack for the Delta, rather than j racks, so I was wondering if the wing style one might allow us to fit our 25" Delta on the wing, (attached as far out as possible) and a 28.5" rec boat on a j rack, both on our 30" cross rails for an occasional trip? (Or eventually, two wing style carriers if we buy a 2nd kayak at some point?)
The Malone Seawing is another option, but it’s nearly twice the price of the Swagman.
@1890 I have (2) sets of the Swagman racks and they work well. I don’t have any complaints about quality, workmanship, or performance. Something to consider, however, is that your 25" wide boat will probably ride fairly high in the Exo rack because the V is realtively sharp.
I also have a pair of the Kayak Wing by Great Lakes and I prefer them for flatter boats. But I don’t think they would work well with a 25" wide boat. With the wing protruding outside the rack you’ll have to attach your strap to the wing instead of the bar, so the strap slot will probably need to be past the outside of your boat. Please see the pictures below as a reference.
The Sea Wing or Mega Sea Wing might be a better fit for that boat and your application.
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Do you know if your factory cross rails are rated to carry the weight of two kayaks? Best find that out before further investment.
@Celia Thank you for bringing that up, but yes. My vehicle manual states that the roof rack load using factory equipment is 220lbs. The Delta 12.10 weighs 41 lbs, (and my friends kayak weighs 52 lbs) so even accounting for lots of additional wind resistance forces, I believe the factory setup I have would be safe for two kayaks. I’d be a lot more concerned if we were considering two super heavy fishing SOTs or something, but I think in our case we’re good.
@High_Desert Thank you for the response. Looking at the Swagman images online, I’d assumed they might have some flex and would flatten to fit the kayak hull, but it’s very good to know that’s likely not the case.
I’ll take another look at the Seawing and Megawing. Another related factor, now that you’ve mentioned it, is that my two cross rails are also pretty close together. The outside of one rail to the inside of the other is only like 30" I think. So the carriers will be sitting pretty much under the front and back edges of my cockpit (32" long cockpit, according to specs), on the flattest part of the hull. The cross rails can’t move forward or backward, unfortunately.
That should put the rear carrier strap pretty much right at the rear bulkhead location at least, so I believe that’s a good thing.
The Exo wings don’t really flatten out that much. If you could find a set locally you could hold them up to the hull of your boat to get a better gauge of how they’ll work.
My rails are also about 30" apart and it has not been a problem.
The distance between the crossbars as you have measured it is not that unusual for factory crossbars. In addition you have a relatively short boat. We have carried 16’ and 18’ boats for many years on crossbars with saddles only 40" apart. You shouldn’t have any problems.
Always use bow and stern tiedowns in addition to the normal straps. If traveling very long distances at highway speeds we will double up on all of the straps and attach each boat’s bow and stern tiedowns to opposite corners.
Yes, I’m adamant about using bow and stern tiedowns.
I picked up a set of Malone Seawings yesterday, and am planning to head to the store to pick up the new kayak in a couple of hours. For right now, especially since it’s only about a 10-15 minute drive in slow, city traffic I’m not worried about multiple tiedown spots, but I am trying to figure out my long term plan.
My vehicle tow hook is stored under the trunk, and needs to be threaded into a receiver, hidden under a little cover on the passenger side of my front bumper. But I don’t think there’s anything on the drivers side to add a second connection point, especially if we’re doing a highway trip with two kayaks in the future.
I’ve been considering the loops that secure under the hood, but that seems like it would but a lot of strain on the hood and hood latch, wouldn’t it?