Advice on extensive epic Ultra repair

This is a friend’s boat. His rack failed and boat and vbar came off the car at highway speeds. Any advice from those that have dealt with this before?

Looks like an insurance write off to me. Unless you have a pro like Ranga who can do the internal reinforcements (stringer / bolsters) it will not be safe out in big waves. Risk of seams popping if nose dive.

Not serious damage but definitely needs attention and internal inspection.

Most important is to see if the ski flexes when you push down in the middle whilst on trestles. Have your hand over the cracks and you will tell straight away if the cracks are structural.

Thanks Ranga! I passed on your advice to my friend.

Zach,

Any chance we can get a description of the rack failure? I have tried to document some of these to provide warnings (& avoidance if possible) about some potential rack failures. Did the owner have any back up strapping on the rack as insurance against such failure (straps over everything and through the car, straps on rack separate from straps on boats?, ...)?

Hi Paul,

Unfortunately I had no extra straps. When I first started paddling Surfski I would add an extra strap around the side rails but I got out of that habit at some point, damn. I am not 100% sure what failed but what seems likely is that the front cross bar either broke or pulled through the windward tower. The incident happened on an interstate so it was hectic and I did not retrieve all the parts. I had inspected the rack prior to my trip to the Gorge and all seemed good at that point. I was only driving about 30-35 mph but we had a gale with gusts well over 40 knots. I was driving mostly into the wind, maybe 20 degrees off the wind - of course there may have been a swirling side gust at the time. I was very lucky there was a gap in the traffic and no one was attempting to pass given the slow speed I was driving because the boats/rack went airborne and landed in the left lane so it could have been much worse.

Thanks Tim,

I am so thankful everyone avoided a greater mishap. I don't think folks are quite as aware as they should be of how often folks have had problems with their racks and not just their boat tie downs. I personally have had 2 near losses of my whole rack during Gorge trips and the paddlers in the Gorge have had a number of rack failure/near failure problems in recent years.

For what it's worth, I believe one of my rack failures was due to a design flaw in the rack that allowed a cross bar to slip sideways (there was a limit in the tightening mechanism for holding it in place). My second rack failure was due to my neglect of one of the tightening allen screws. In both instances I believe a strap over the whole rack helped to give me time to pull over before complete failure was able to occur.

Thanks for that info Paul. I wasn’t aware of other failures and close calls.

Descriptions here of some of the rack problems experienced:

surfski.wiki/boat_transport_and_storage#car_top_boat_carriers

Yes, skis coming of racks is quite common. I repair such things a lot. Some are rack failure, poor design and manufacturing. But most of all poor handling by paddler, like no straps at all?

I keep on telling paddlers if the ski is on the roof it's tied on, period. I get laughed at quite regularly and told there is no wind today, as it turns out the wind is exactly at the speed you are traveling at when you do forget to tie it on! Or a gust of wind just throws it off the top, nature is a funny beast, plays tricks on us.

I usually use V bars (not ideal for ski, they are shaped for K1).

V bars bolted to roof rack. Straps around ski and V bar, additional straps around ski and roof bars.

mrcharly,
There is at least one V-bar maker who provides a lower angle V option that fits wider surfskis somewhat better. Some of the lighter surfski manufacturers like NK recommend tilting their surfskis in V-bars to reduce torque from side wind - turning a ski like that can sometimes make them fit with somewhat more surface area contact in a V-bar.

Also - if I understand your extra strapping description (correct me if I am wrong) your extra straps are all good ideas but none of them provide backup for a whole roof rack (what your V-bars are connected to) that is disengaging from the car? I prefer to also add a strap over everything and inside of my back doors (I close the doors on them) not super tight. On the highway I have experienced my whole rack starting to disengage as a unit with multiple V-bars and surfskis attached where I believe that inside the car/over everything strap slowed disengagement just enough to allow me to pull over and address the problem before complete catastrophe.

Ultimately we will upgrade our car so we don't have to use a car rack with bases that hook into the door wells. Some of the boaters we know bolt their roof racks through their car roofs on cars that are similarly challenged for solid car to roof rack connections. I am also considering adding right and left front and rear straps from car to roof rack that help further secure my roof rack to the car similarly to how someone might strap the ends of a river canoe to their car (but I wouldn't strap the ends of a surfski that way ).

We have changed the brand/model of our roof rack twice and our current rack is clearly more secure and the adjustment screws are fewer in number and more easily accessed for retightening with the included torque wrench.

I've had one instance of a rack coming loose while driving, and it was of the type you describe.

Since then, all my cars have had roof rails, and the bars either bolt or strap (Thule-type) to these rails.

Personally wouldn't trust the sort of racks that hook into rain gutters or door wells.

mrcharly - yep, understood. But I have seen and experienced roof rail racks that failed both due to negligence and design flaws. Backup straps are a good idea for just about any style rack.

I think you must have use incorrectly installed or bad (cheap?) racks then.

A Thule rack is not going to fail - the straps are rubber-covered steel bands.
The racks on my Jogger are literally bolted to the car.

Both are more secure than running some strapping through the car (which is a safety and driving hazard).

You would think so. But what I discovered with more than one car (we bought 2 for 2 cars at the same time including a Subaru Outback with a roof rack) is there is a Yakima aero setup (not cheap at all) that has a critical design limitation.

surfski.wiki/_media/equipment/car_racks/yakima_aero.jpg

Notice the oval loop that holds the aero bar. It is metal and has a limit in how much it can be tightened. If you have several surfskis on Vbars attached to the rack you can experience enough side wise torque to cause the aero bars to slip sideways in these mounts, ultimately compromising the overall attachment to your roof rails. If say, the front bar slips sideways - you are then going down the highway with the boats on a diagonal that causes increasing force to push the boats and aero bar even more sideways.

I initially replaced this setup with a different Yakima one that does not have the same problem. Unfortunately my new rack towers on the roof rails had an underside, out of sight tightening bolt that could loosen over time and I neglected to tighten one of them which led to my front rack tower popping off on the highway.

Now I have a Thule rack that is simpler to maintain and I have seen only the slightest bit of loosening in the adjustment bolts which I check before trips. Ultimately simpler is probably the way to go. It seems to me that bolting your cross bars directly to your roof rails is better than relying on any of the rack manufacturers towers to connect to the roof rails.

Hmm, the Thule bars I had used a torque wrench to tighten the fastenings. Definitely no possibility of side slip. Plus, the rubber strip that goes in the T-bolt groove helps prevent V bars from moving.

The Jogger bars (which are just the rails, rotated around and re-bolted in) don't have the rubber strip, which concerned me. So I've glued an old bicycle inner tube to the underside of the V bars.