kayak tie down

What necessitates your kayak to be tied down?

Mine ride on top just fine without. Here is a trip we took just recently. One kayak is 12 feet, the other 14.

 

How robust is that front strap? Has is been exposed to much weather or UV aging that could degrade its strength or make it brittle?

Would you trust your life to it? (Actually, it will be someone else's life or skull.)

I ask because the local kayak expert who helped get us equipped (used equipment market) and somewhat trained, points out that many straps weaken with age, weather, and UV and become prone to breakage. If a strong enough wind gust snaps the front strap, the rear will almost certainly be leveraged to failure and you will lose the load. Following some high profile lost loads incidents here, causing fatalities and severe brain-damaging injuries to persons in other vehicles, that is now a serious crime in this state.

A nose rope will help keep the front strap from snapping, in addition to being a holddown in its own right and adding some fault tolerance. And with a tail rope too, you can suffer several holddown failures and still keep the load close to your car, not flying off through someone else's windshield.

Think of the nose and tail ropes as roof-load equivalent to the safety chains that all hitch-towed trailers should have.

(FWIW, that kayak expert is a retired kayak maker, and has repaired several kayaks that came loose and got bent or broken.)

 

Sounds like wisdom passed along from an owner who leaves their racks on throughout the summer.

Mine stay in the garage, safely tucked away in a clean & dry environment... reducing the aging to that of a seatbelt. So, there's no concern whatsoever about their ability to hold the kayak securely.

 

As he made and sold kayaks, he was able to collect the experiences and wisdom fed back from a substantial customer base.

My equipment is stored indoors too.

 

+1 for using a bow line for anything other than motoring around town.
Stuff happens, and a bow line could save lives. Look around any popular put-in; only novices skip a bow line around these parts.
But it is unusual to see more than one bow line for kayaks.
Generally the whole load is strapped together (and anchored to the front of the car) with one sturdy rope.
Heavier canoes may each get a line. It only takes a minute.

I'm not a pro, but here's a Pro Tip: Don't draw the lines very tight. I once saw a car pulled over after a large freeway pot hole.
Two fiberglass sea kayaks were fractured from the sudden vertical shock.

 

Look at the underside of the door rim on the roof of Prius Prime. Notice that rubber plug?

It is a hole to secure the footing of a rack. Each foot clip has a pin now. That guarantees the exact correct placement in addition to serving as a means to secure the load from ever shifting... which is the purpose of that one sturdy rope.

In other words, newer racks have an elegantly simple means of doing the same thing. No rope needed.

 

U-haul has this. It's shown as "This product is no longer available" but some stores may still have it - they were still advertising it at a store I just visited yesterday.

U-Haul: Universal One-Man Canoe Loader

 

Hi.
For those who transport a 18.6 souris river canoe on top of my old Odys up and down I-5 for over 500 miles, I strongly suggest 3 points connections in addition to any hardness you have on top IMO: it is not -that hard- and keep everyone safe in freeway .

For the paint, pls look into this:

You, your family and everyone will proud of how you secure your luggage.

Dong

 

That only secures the rack to the roof, not the kayak to the rack. It leaves the kayak still a single-point-failure away from sailing off the roof.

This was not mentioned at all in the first reply, leaving novices who happen upon it quite unaware of the serious risks.

WAC 204-70-070 Safety chains and attaching means required.

What are Safety Chains and Why Do I Need Them for My Trailer? –

Regulations Section | Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration

 

Keep in mind, there are different grades of equipment. People should be aware of the tradeoffs from using a less-capable setup. A cheap system would need secondary restraints.

Leaving add-on equipment on long-term is a tradeoff as well. The longer anything is exposed to the elements, the quicker it ages.

 

Exactly right.
Full confession - I've never put a bow line on skis. (How would you do that?)
But 100 pounds of kayaks are another matter.

 

Two straps, both clamped & tied, is not a single-point. Again, the better the equipment, the better the results.

 

Previously addressed:

If failure at one point is likely to cascade and cause additional failure (e.g. by allowing the bow to catch the wind and fly up steeply, very severely increasing the stress on the rear strap to snap it), then the whole event sequence still counts as single-point failure. See also fracture-critical.

A rear strap failure is far less likely to rapidly cascade in this manner, allowing the driver much more opportunity to pull over.

Skis have a much higher cross sectional density, so are much less likely to catch the headwind enough to pivot up. I'm sure nearly everyone has witnessed somebody fail to close a ski rack clamp, causing some skis to slide sideways and partially off the roof. The wind loading is light enough that the other clamp point still holds.

I was thinking that our fiberglass kayaks were much closer to 50 pounds than 100. I'll have to weigh them the next time they are down.

 

I was estimating the total weight of the 2 boats shown in the second post.
Yes, glass boats are likely closer to 50 pounds each (unless you have a heavy British lay-up). Regardless of material, (and excluding tandems), most recreational, or whitewater, or sea kayaks will be 50 pounds +/-20. (22.7kg +/- 9.1kg)

 

I was assuming each boat strapped separately, as I do, so one front strap failure likely won't lose two boats.

 

Same here, and same as john1701a's photo.
In addition to 2 straps per boat, I was referring to a single bow line tied to both boats, protecting against any strap or rack failure.
That's for our whitewater boats. Our 17' sea kayaks also get a single stern line for the pair.
The idea is to try to keep any snafu confined to our car rather than scattered across two lanes of traffic.

And, as with most things Prius (he said in a desperate attempt to make this relevant), the more attention we pay to the details the less likely it is we will suffer said snafu.

 

Getting back to the original post...
Rather than install tow hooks, I purchased a set of these from that big river place:
"Shoreline Marine Propel Hood Trunk tie-Down Loops"

This isn't an endorsement, since I've just begun using them on my Prius C and Highlander. I attached the tube/anchor part to the frame under the hood on the passenger side with cable ties.
I realize this runs the risk of tearing up the hood/bonnet if my boats and/or rack try to escape the roof of the car. But I reckon the car's going to take a beating in that case anyway. YMMV.