Loading my Sea Kayak onto the roof of my Van

And for those of you (and I get asked this a lot) who need to know the height of the roof bars above the vans roof when fitted, it is about 100mm.

Fitting the roof bars to this van was not very easy for me with the satellite dish causing me the biggest problem. You will note I don't have much room on the roof with the various skylights, vents, solar panel as well as the 85cm satellite dish! 

The Fiat Ducato Maxi van has four roof rack points. However due to all the clobber on the roof I am only able to use the 1st and 3rd of these mounting points. This is is a close call with the satellite dish. The dish closes like a clam, with the LNB arm closing one side of the roof bar and the dish on the other. In fact to get it to fit properly I had to bend the Thule roof bar ever so slightly, to give about 1cm of clearance either side of the Dish and LNB arm when closed.

I fitted the rather excellent KCS v-cradles to the Thule Bars . These are extremely well made v-cradles, manufactured from 12mm polypropylene with 10mm of closed cell foam on top, to give your kayak a nice snug fit. Not only do these look good but they have minimal wind resistance and do save fuel over other more bulky designs. They come with a strong stretchy bungee to secure your kayak using the hook shown  in the picture below. But I always secure with additional straps for safety.There's nothing wrong with a bit of redundancy.

KCS also make a rather excellent expedition trolley which I've been using for the last few years. Be sure to check it out on their web page https://www.kayakcarriers.co.uk

The extending ladder I use was bought from ebay for £34.59, which is a bargain. It's had plenty of use with the van and has come in handy around the house too! Glueing some closed cell foam to the top rung of the ladder protects the roof from scratches etc. I've since improved the "van protection" shown in the video with a long strip of closed cell foam across the entire length of the top ladder rung.  

As for the aluminium rectangular tube used as a roof bar extension, this too was bought from Ebay. The size to fit the Thule Bars is 25 mm x 15 mm. I went for a 2mm thickness for extra strength. I found I needed to round off the corners ever so slightly, to get it to fit inside the Thule bar.  Approximately 75mm fits inside the Thule roof bar, which through testing, appears to more weight than the maximum roof bar load!  ie.  way way waaaaay more than a kayak!

The white block you see in the video on the end of the roof bar extension is just another piece of closed cell foam to prevent the kayak from flopping to one side and potentially falling off. I've attached this to the bar using lots of super strong tape.

When the boat is loaded on the roof, the satellite dish works without being impeded by the kayak in anyway. But the large electrically operated roof vent can only be partially opened about 3-4 inches. So far, this has not been a problem in our lovely British summertime weather.

I now have the same arrangement on a newer van, a Fiat Ducato Wildax Aurora, having now sold our old lovely Murvi. Both vans use the same Fiat Ducato body, but with completely different layouts inside. Instead of having issues with the satellite dish, the Wildax doesn't have one (and to be honest I won't be rushing out to buy one),  I had issues with the awning. In that the awning fitted to the Wildax uses the vans fixed mounting points! But that is another story...