Saddles in use for CD Libra XT tandem kayak?

We will soon have a CD Libra XT tandem kayak and would appreciate knowing what others with this boat are using for saddles. We have a Thule square rack at the front of the cab on our 2012 Nissan Frontier and a Yakima round bar at the rear of the bed - for a pretty decent spread between bars. Most all of the saddles we have considered will connect to either of these crossbars. Thanks!

Yakima mako saddles. Enjoy the Libra great boat much fun. On Yakima round bars on an Ford Excursion. Great boat in big water. Huge capacity.

Yup, Mako saddles are great. So are older Yakima Land Shark saddles and a variety of Thule saddles. Stick with a major supplier. Stay away from the Yakima Evenkeel saddles, as they have a tendency to spin on Yakima round bars when sliding the kayak on from the rear. No spin on square or factory bars.

Thanks folks!

Do either of you store the tandem kayak suspended from a garage ceiling on a pulley system? If so - any thoughts to pass on? Thanks!

No I have made a two wooden cradles that have 4" nylon web straps. I’ll post a picture in the morning. If I was hanging it I would hang it in straps. No clue of the regular kayak hoists kits weight capacity. Nice to keep it in the garage if it’s high enough to drop right on the vehicle and go.

https://www.outdoorplay.com/Harken-Kayak-Hoister-Storage-System 200 lb. working load looks decent.

have you used the Libra yet? Your thoughts?

We got the boat last weekend. Due to time constraints we were only able to take it out on a local park-district lake. We were happy with it. A bit wider than we’d prefer but we chose it for the huge center hatch - so that we can (very occasionally) fit our 75 lb dog in there. We bought two different paddles - AquaBound carbon shaft fiberglass blades, one longer and narrower the other shorter and wider. Bought the longer narrower for my wife and she ended up preferring the shorter wider blade (at this point). Bit of work loading/unloading the boat from Nissan Frontier rooftop-level racks - but have some thoughts about better ways to do that.

For the garage storage we are considering using (2) hoisting kits - since the boat is 22’ long. We don’t want long unsupported sections and if we increase the load-carrying from two to four straps we’ll (roughly) cut the PSI on the hull by the straps in half.

Thanks for your reply!

P.S. Were you also going to post a photo of your storage - or is the commercial photo what you use?



I get.t it up on my Ford Excursion myself.

I added wider feet on bottom so when I haul it up of floater to bulkhead and the push it up they don’t tilt and fall over.

Cool. Great use of the soft wide strap supports. Thanks for the pictures.

I see you are using the wide foam car-carrier blocks on the boat in the background. I am considering doing something similar with a hoist system - integrating the blocks into a lifting platform that gets hoisted.

900 and three hr drive to Woodstock CT

Stands were really made for SOT 15’ Ocean Trident

Did you add the shamrocks or did you inherit them? I looked for a pre-owned but couldn’t find one. That’s a great price…

My decorations & USA reflective 3M material flags. I looked for couple of years for a Libra XT. Found one near me 1800 then they changed there mind. Almost gave up as most are in Canada or upper Midwest. Two days later I see this one for sale and drove few hrs. each way. Love it and so does my honey. It’s just glass wish it was Kevlar like my other kayaks but it’s fine. You dog will love it. Very stable even in 4’ breaking waves and boat wakes. What color is yours?


Mine is a 1999. They person I bought it from father owned it.i think he died so I think they just wanted it gone.