Roof rack for a canoe

Kayteg1 wrote:
Yakima bars are 3/4" steel pipe with plastic coating on it.
Whazoo's canoe has ends curved up, so flipped canoe goes on the top of AC.
Looks like it adds `18' of height, so not possible for most of solid walls TC.
My canoe is flatter, so canoe "hugs" the AC, while adding maybe 4-6" to the height.
Also being flatter- all it takes is 2 bars to stay solid.
Weight is important. My first canoe was 80lb and even I could easy carry 150 lb at the time - pulling 80 lb sucker on the roof was quite a challenge.
So I got 45 lb Wenonah and that thing makes everything much easier.

I'm familiar with the Yakima bars - that's what I've used on past SUVs. I wanted to know how the towers that hold the bars are attached. Yakima offers a track system that appears to be fastened every 12-18 inches, which seems like it would do a good job of spreading the load. It would also raise the canoe less than a Maggie rack, which adds its own height.

I have a solid wall TC (Eagle Cap 850) so height is a concern. If I remove the yoke and mount over the AC I don't think it would add more height than mounting on either side (which would present other challenges). In either case it shouldn't sit much higher than the AC - sounds similar to your case.

My Northstar 16 weighs only 39 lbs so hauling it up shouldn't be too bad, and the additional weight on top will be minimal. I'm more concerned about the lateral and lifting forces. That's why the load-spreading of the Yakima tracks is appealing.