So lifting my canoe on the roof of my car is getting hard to do as I get older. Then Vash posted the Kayak saga, and I knew I had to have one.
I am not an avid fisherman anymore. I spent a week in Quetico years ago, I caught 5 and 6 pound smallmouth everyday, all day, and our local fishing isn't like that, so I quit.
I do like to do photography, and camping, so I bought a recreational Kayak. After some research, and watching a bunch of youtube videos, I decided on a Jackson Tupelo 12.5. My dealer had one in stock.
My roof rack is only wide enough to carry one, and my wife wants one too, so I needed some Jbars to cradle them on their side. I bent up some 3/16 X 4" flat stock with my hydraulic pipe bender. I turned a coupling on my lathe to fit the end of the ram, and I welded a piece of angle iron for a shoe. I put the steel in at 90 degrees from how I bend pipe, it did a nice job bending the steel to make the Jbars.
I TIG welded some eyelets on the ends for tiedowns, and sprayed them with bed liner, and glued some strips of rubber floor mat so they wouldn't scratch my boat.
"Glue, strong stuff"
I have a Frontrunner roof rack on my Outback that uses slots that a 5/16 bolt head fits into, so bolting them on was easy.
They don't make any wind noise when empty, even at 80. I am pretty pleased with that. Loading is very easy, just set them in the brackets, and tie them in.
My wife borrowed a sit on top Kayak from the university where she works to see whether she wants a sit on top, or sit inside, before we buy her one.
Saturday, we went to a local Game and Fish Commission lake, to paddle around and look at nature. Had a blast, until a smartazz that was cleaning a 3 foot catfish hanging from a tree in his yard, walked out on his pier and started yapping about a 12 foot Alligator he saw by his pier that had been ripping up his trotline. He showed us a video of it by his pier on his phone. My wife was ready to paddle back to the car after that.
continued....