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Kayaks on the roof?

N

Nighters

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Hi all,

Waiting for my Cali to turn up should be a couple of weeks till i get it.

Just got a question about roof rack. If I have a roof rack with a kayak attached to it (16 foot sea Kayak X 2) can I still open the roof when i get onsite?

Thanks all,
Paul
 
Paul, you should be OK, we used to have a 12ft kayak on the roof and that was fine, only thing I would say is with 16ft though you will probably have quite a bit of overhang at the front if you want access to the tailgate, even more so if you have a bike rack.
 
I bought a karitek roof rack for my sea kayak as I usually paddle alone.

With that and a Nordkapp, I would not raise the roof, so take the Kayak off the roof. The roof rack is heavy by itself and you can hear the roof straining.

The good thing about the roof rack is it slides down the side of the Cali so you can still easily access the boot.

Off to the Sea Kayak symposium in Falmouth in 2 weeks. So hoping for some good weather.
 
Good luck with the weather.

Not heard of that roof rack before is it easy to fit?
 
Expensive. But then it seems since buying the Cali I've spent a fair bit on gadgets...

The rails go over the standard VW roof bars and allow the Kayak's to be lifted down to the side of the vehicle.

http://www.karitek.co.uk/index.php?page ... t&Itemid=5

When they first arrived it took me a couple of hours to put together, now its down to 20 minutes ish. Once on loading the Kayak's takes less than a minute I can do it alone and no more straining to lift onto a roof.
 
Another vote for the Kari-tek rack here. Doesn't look great, but is a brilliant functional bit of kit that makes loading / unloading boats very easy.
 
Any idea how much the Kari-tek rack weighs on its own?
 
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