Need help ASAP. Need a Prius roof rack for kayacks.

Don't know if this will help track down what you are looking for but....... about 2 years ago the first Prius I had ever seen had two kayaks secured on an air-filled type rack on the roof of the vehicle. He had made several trips from Vancouver Island to Mexico with this arrangement and said that the drop in mpg was minimal and no damage to the paint work. That roof rack was a universal product , not designed for any particular model of vehicle. Wish I'd been clever enough then to know I'd be owning a Prius.

 

Thule has a mounting system for the Prius now; Yakima is supposed to have one shortly.

 

I've used the Thule system on my '04. Works great. But I've no experience with their kayak mounts.

 

We're kayakers too and have been looking at options for taking our new Prius (we've been using our Forester) when we go kayaking. The inflatable rack that was mentioned might be this one:
[Broken External Image]:http://www.boundarywaterscatalog.com/prodimg/C22202.jpg

You can google 'handirack' for where to buy. It's about $60.

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like a solution for transporting 2 kayaks because we can't see how we'd easily tie down and fit 2 kayaks on it, without the kayaks bumping around during transport.

So we're thinking of buying the Thule car rack for the Prius. We already have a J-shaped Thule Hull-a-Port that we've been using on the Forester's rack:
This way, one kayak lays on its side in the Hullaport and the 2nd kayak lays flat on the car rack.

 

I have a friend who uses Thule racks on a Subru and like it. The actual rack would be the same the only different part is the mount on the car.

 

The airfilled racks that stevenalice posted above look exactly like the one I saw a couple of years ago. I do remember he had life jackets strapped in between them but do not remember how they were securely fastened to the vehicle. Must have been though to make it down Mexico way and return.

 

Maybe we'll reconsider the Handirack if we can figure out how. Canuck, do you remember if the kayaks were laying flat, or on their side? Ours are too wide to both fit up there laying flat, and too unstable lying on their side.

 

Sorry, stevenalice, I do remember two singles but not the arrangement. His lady partner had just arrived at the car eager to talk about the Prius but we just discussed the aerodynamics of the roof load briefly.

 

I have the Thule rack for my 04 Prius and it works great for kayaks, canoes, bikes, etc. They made a fit kit to fit the Prius roof line.

 

Wait, prius04, your daughter has 2 inflatable kayaks? I thought we were talking about hard shell kayaks here. She can't deflate them for the trip?

Oh wait, now I see you may have meant if you put the two inflatable handiracks closer together, you might fit 2 kayaks. At any rate, I can't wait to hear how it goes. The thule rack for the Prius is like over $200 so even though we already have the hullaport, we'd really like the handirack to work.

 

Long post Here...

I'm linking to it because there are a good number of pictures and I don't want to slow down this thread

 

Thanks for sharing the adventure with us. I'm sure many Prius owners will benefit for the experience. I guess the guy who told me about those racks was telling the truth about his trips to Mexico and back from Canada.

 

btw, in those pictures, the larger kayak is tilted pretty far up. It didn't start that way. The wind pushed it back over the 28 hour drive. We were simply too lazy to fix it. We knew the kayaks were secure because the fronts were tied to the front and back of the car. They could shift all they wanted but they could not move forwards, backwards, or to the sides. Only rotate.