Date:         Tue, 26 Mar 2002 18:13:39 -0800
Reply-To:     Steve Sullivan <steveis@SPEAKEASY.ORG>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Steve Sullivan <steveis@SPEAKEASY.ORG>
Subject:      Roof racks, kayaks, and wind
Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"

I'm buying a sea kayak soon, and therefore will need a rack mounted atop my
westy pop top.

For those with experience in these matters, how much worse is the handling
from being blown around by the wind with a 16-foot kayak sailing along
attached to your roof? It's windy around here and oftentimes I've nearly
sailed out of my lane without anything strapped to the roof.

And...anyone know of an option to the Yakima/Thule racks and typical setups?
Once I saw a rack bolted to the rain gutter within an inch of the rear of
the van, and another at the rear of the luggage rack, allowing for a low
rack height and the pop top to open when the rack is attached (but not with
gear like a kayak tied on obviously). The van was a Westy here on vacation
from Germany, and I've never seen anything like the rack here. It seemed to
be constructed of square aluminum, unpainted. I'll attempt to create a
drawing of it here:

            __
           /||  < Roof rack "tower" and "cross-rod" to hold gear.
          //||
_________//_||__ < Top of pop-top roof
        //  ||  |
_______//___||__|
________________|< Raingutter
                |
     VAN REAR   |
                |
                |


Steve

--
Steve Sullivan
Mount Vernon, Washington

Calvin, the 84 Westy
Hobbes, the imaginary Westy Syncro