Now that you mention it, I'm sure I've heard my father say that too. He's got a rack in his basement that supports the boat from the 1/3 marks much like your rope system does. Good thinkin'!

You're still quite ballsy for putting holes like that into the ceiling in an apartment! Do you have any landloard/security deposit concerns?

 

I'm in good with the landlord. He's about my age and pretty much I can do whatever I want to with the place. When the time comes for me to leave I'll just spackle the holes and toss some white paint on them. It's almost impossible to store anything on the floor in this place. It's a decent size place, but with Jenn and I living here we have a good bit of stuff. My music equipment is all on the wall as well as all of our pots and pans lol.

 

That's cool. I dunno why I get so uptight about that stuff. I know for a fact that they'll repaint after I leave. I've already been here 4 years and I'm about to resign for another. Every apartment should probably get paint when turned over after 4 or more years..

I've got 12' ceilings too.. Maybe a boat should be in my future too!

 

Got the rack finished and painted. I wish it was a little closer to the roof rack but I have to work with what I've got. Jenn's kayak was too short to be tied down alone so I had to secure it to mine and then strap each one to the front and rear as usual. It's straps galore!

Here's pics, tell me what you think.

 

you're right that is a lot of straps
well it's the first time you threw them up, maybe there is a better load plan
how about some sort of plate to support Jenn's kayak better and reduce the number of straps
do you really need that many going from the bumper up?
have you fabricated a device to snug up the hitch point?
all in all it looks good, very strong

 

looks good though


man i must have a long kayak then, mine can sit at the end of the bed an still hang over the cab

 

Instead of having all the straps hand down I'm only hanging the ones that stabilize the rack itself drop all the way down. The stern straps can just hook onto the support bars for the top bar. I need to have the center straps on there to stabilize the yellow boat. The White boat would stay on if I flipped it hehe. After we went out today I rearranged a few thigns and it should work out much better.

 

Sweet! Who cares how it looks, just so long as it works!

..Although that is a bumload of straps. What's that, like $200 worth?!

 

Rofl no. The straps I pay nothing for but its about 30 bucks worth. There's the two yellow ones that came with the Malone J-mounts, and then 8 red ones bought at the local hardware store.

 

Well, I'm not really happy with the rack. Sure it's rock solid, and I can hang another car on it. But I guess it's just really not what I was hoping. It's pretty much not fast enough when I just want to come home and go hit the lake or whatever with the kayak. So, I've decided to take the KC's off the top for the rest of the warm months and mount the tray back on there come winter, or never, who knows at this point. Here's a photoshopped pic of what the ranger is going to look like after tomorrow night when I remove the KC's. I was trying to see if there was a way to remove just the outer 2 lights and such, but the lower wire tray I made would have to be cut, drilled, and whatever and that's just a pain in the ***. Mind you, I'm making the lights plug and play so when I'm done with kayaking for the year I can just put the lights back on there for the winter. I think it will be alot easier than having to put the rack on the hitch and hooking everything up in the end.


Lol, look on the hood and you still see the lights. tricky...

 

Any thoughts? before I go cutting wires and stuff