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So on my next RDO I want to take the 14ft board down to Exmouth or Coral Bay and sup around all day - problem is I have to hire a car, hire cars here don't come with roof racks. Can anyone recommend decent soft roof racks?, ive seen a couple of different ones on ebay for around the $50 mark. I'll be using them quite often on my RDO's highway travelling to different places up here.
Thanks
I got a set of ProLite ones 4 or 5 years ago that have served me pretty well when travelling with a race board and when I'm using a work ute which doesn't have racks. Haven't had any problems with them, though the board can tend to move around or bounce a bit (which can be a bit disconcerting when you're used to solid racks and it staying still).
For driving any distance with the soft racks, especially with a race board, I would recommend running an extra strap over the top of the board and through the car, as well as (or even instead of) the strap that's designed to loop around the board from the racks themselves. It feels much more secure this way and the board doesn't seem to move around as much.
I've used this set up quite often - strapped to soft racks at the front and the solid bar behind the cab at the back - works a treat if you've got a similar option available (depending what vehicle you've got?)
Hi Kieren, if you can rent a small SUV with roof rails - running longitudinally, you can get a couple of bits of timber about 120cm long, 2 x 1 pine or whatever and with some cheap thin rope lash the pine to the roof rails. The pine becomes your roof rails, then with a bit of padding and normal straps your are laughing. If they won't cut the pine in the hardware store the saw in a Swiss army knife will do it!
Hope that makes sense, roof rails run north south and rack east west like normal. And when you are done, just keep it all for next time.
Of course there is the old double beach towel rental car roof rack, roll up two beach towels to create a pad/spacer chuck the board on and straps through the open doors - the roof pops back out....well always has so far
Its really not as dodgy as it sounds and the board travels well. One little trick if you are worried about the board moving around, put it tail first, upside down, then you can use the leg rope attachment point to tie down to the front of the car. If you open the bonnet you can always find something to thread some thin rope through, for surfski's I put a loop of rope coming out on each side of the bonnet, if you are fussy a strip of duct tape on the edge of the bonnet to protect the paint. So when the bonnet is shut there is a little loop sticking out near the front of the bonnet on both sides. When the board is on the roof, just tie some rope through one loop, looped through the leg rope, rope (with a hitch to stop it sliding sideways) then down to the loop on the other side.
If you do that the straps through the car don't really need to be roof flexing tight, it will be rock solid even in side winds.
I have the Anaconda SEAK soft racks. www.anacondastores.com/water/boating-essentials/racks-storage . They work great for me, I've had my boards (9.6ft and 12.6 ft -one at a time of course :-) ) on top at freeway speeds without movement.
