Dan_Millsip
Paddler
First of all, I have to say that this is a bit of an embarrassing tale to tell but there's a lesson to be learned from the errors of my way so I'll tell it here.
I got up for work this morning, strapped a kayak on the roof of my somewhat tired 1995 Ford Windstar van and made my way down the road. I got on the freeway at Langley and headed out towards Abbotsford. Conditions were icy and there was a lot of gusting wind. Maximum speed on the freeway was about 60 kph. Traffic was moderate.
Anyway, what I failed to do before I left home was to put bow and stern lines on the kayak. As I approached Abbotsford the wind was gusting so much that snow drifts were crossing over the highway in huge swirling clouds. As I passed Mount Lehman Road and headed down the hill I could see some big gusts just in front of me. As I went through them, I heard a very feint "whump" and then something caught my eye out the side window -- it was the kayak that used to be strapped to the top of my car!
I stopped the car and ran back to the kayak which was about 100 meters behind me and lying across the road, blocking the entire slow lane. A car had stopped just before the kayak and the driver got out just as I arrived and pulled the kayak off to the side of the road.
I have a set of Thule bars with kayak cradles mounted on the factory rails on my van. The rails had been ripped right off of the car. The entire roof rack assembly was still attached to the kayak!
Fortunately, there was no one nearby behind me when the rack blew off the car. Had there been, it very well could have been a major catastrophy had traffic been any heavier.
One of the people that I work with was driving right in front of me when it happened and she saw the whole thing in her rear-view mirror. She said that the kayak turned perpendicular to my car and kind of "floated" off the back before landing on the pavement a ways behind me. Quite honestly, had I not caught a glimpse of the boat when it left the car, I probably wouldn't have even been aware that it was gone.
Fortunately (again), we did a thorough assessment of the damage and there appeared to be no structural damage -- the extent of the damage was nothing more than gel coat being scraped off. Easy enough to fix.
I'm lucky -- for today, anyway. This situation could have been a whole lot worse. Way worse. Luck was definitely on my side today.
You can bet that I won't be driving my vehicle with a kayak on the top without having bow and stern lines ever again.
Here's a few photos showing the extent of the damage to the kayak:
*****
I got up for work this morning, strapped a kayak on the roof of my somewhat tired 1995 Ford Windstar van and made my way down the road. I got on the freeway at Langley and headed out towards Abbotsford. Conditions were icy and there was a lot of gusting wind. Maximum speed on the freeway was about 60 kph. Traffic was moderate.
Anyway, what I failed to do before I left home was to put bow and stern lines on the kayak. As I approached Abbotsford the wind was gusting so much that snow drifts were crossing over the highway in huge swirling clouds. As I passed Mount Lehman Road and headed down the hill I could see some big gusts just in front of me. As I went through them, I heard a very feint "whump" and then something caught my eye out the side window -- it was the kayak that used to be strapped to the top of my car!
I stopped the car and ran back to the kayak which was about 100 meters behind me and lying across the road, blocking the entire slow lane. A car had stopped just before the kayak and the driver got out just as I arrived and pulled the kayak off to the side of the road.
I have a set of Thule bars with kayak cradles mounted on the factory rails on my van. The rails had been ripped right off of the car. The entire roof rack assembly was still attached to the kayak!
Fortunately, there was no one nearby behind me when the rack blew off the car. Had there been, it very well could have been a major catastrophy had traffic been any heavier.
One of the people that I work with was driving right in front of me when it happened and she saw the whole thing in her rear-view mirror. She said that the kayak turned perpendicular to my car and kind of "floated" off the back before landing on the pavement a ways behind me. Quite honestly, had I not caught a glimpse of the boat when it left the car, I probably wouldn't have even been aware that it was gone.
Fortunately (again), we did a thorough assessment of the damage and there appeared to be no structural damage -- the extent of the damage was nothing more than gel coat being scraped off. Easy enough to fix.
I'm lucky -- for today, anyway. This situation could have been a whole lot worse. Way worse. Luck was definitely on my side today.
You can bet that I won't be driving my vehicle with a kayak on the top without having bow and stern lines ever again.
Here's a few photos showing the extent of the damage to the kayak:
*****
) i helped her put the tupperware bathtub on her roof (i mean a bare roof) . when i asked about foamblocks she got a pair of slippery little cushions out. well, I said, that's quite dangerous, but do you have some straps to tie down the boat? (of course she didn't). I tried to sell her a few, but she didn't go fo that. Instead, she got out a few pieces of string. Really thin string. Like the kind my wife uses to knit my socks (no, she doesn't have a blog or a website to link to yet 
