My wife and I were driving west on I70 yestersay and a minivan, with a SOT sitting in what looked like Thule Hull a port cradles mounted to factory crossbars, went by us. As it passed us we both commented on how the boat seemed to be moving around a little. About 5 seconds later, the front of the boat came loose (It looked like the Hull a port came off the crossbar) and fell off the drivers side of the van and started flopping around. The only thing that kept it from coming completely off was the bow line which loosly held the boat on until the van could get pulled over.
I like my Thule stuff, and I use the Hull a ports but I dont trust the plastic pieces that they use to mount the Hull a port to the crossbars. I always run my straps straight down through the tubes of the Hull a port and around the crossbar so the kayak is strapped directly to the bar and not to just the cradle that way all the stress of the boat pulling and twisting is taken off the plastic cradle mounts. I think they redesigned their mounts, I have an older one, so it may not be an issue now, but Im sure there are still some older ones out there.
they probally didnt
have the nuts tightened, vibrations loosen things, and if the nuts were’nt tight to begin with, well, couple hundred mile later…Surprise!
Good possibility
actually. I find that the wing nuts on my Yakima j cradles loosen up, I leave the carriers on my rack all the time. But I always tighten the nuts periodically, and always tighten them down prior to loading my boats.
Sometimes I consider replacing the plastic wing nuts with SS nuts with nylon locking inserts - but that makes it much harder to remove the racks if I need to, and could allow me to over tighten the nuts on those bolts with a wrench possibly causing failure by breaking/cracking the bolts, or the plastic brackets.
Mine won’t come off
I have a bolt through them and through my Yakama bars.
I also threw their useless hardware away and changed it out with stainless steel bolts, washers and locknuts.
I have two sets of them, but if I ever have to to replace them I’ll get a different brand.
Cheers,
JackL