Kenny-Right now, I'm using my grey foam kayak holders and tie-down straps. One goes on the front crossbar, the other sits on the tire. It holds the kayak down just fine, but is a PIA to load up.
The reason I haven't put any mounts yet is I'm trying to decide which way to mount the kayak - on the saddles or (this one is a new thing for me) use an upright mount which holds the kayak on it's side.
My dillema here is getting the kayak up on the rig. I can load from the front over the hood just fine if I use the saddles, but the spare tire sits up higher so the whole kayak would be angled down in the front (the saddles in the back would have to be mounted high enough for the kayak to clear the tire). On my Suburban rack, the kayak sits on one side, the tire on the other, but the H3 isn't wide enough for that. On my Jeep (same width), the kayak was on one side over the spare time with a yakima spacebooster on the other side. The kayak sat up way high - it looked like a command module for a starship enterprise or something!
At this point, I'm stuck for a long-term solution. I'd love to hear from others on this forum with ideas for this. The advantage of building a rack is that the design canbe made up on the fly - but this one thing has been eating at me for awhile. Oh well, I'll go have a few beers, free up my mind, and probably come up with something down the line...
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