Thursday, September 16, 2010

Hullavator

It is made well and works as advertised...and I use it less and less. Why? To begin, it is a pain to have to put it on and take it off the rack every time I paddle. You see, there is no way I can go into the garage with the gizmo on the car. Secondly, it has to be adjusted so the boat is aligned with the direction of travel.

This requires using an Allen wrench on both parts of both arms of each cradle whenever I change boats. Furthermore, tighten them as I might, they don't seem to hold their position and have to be relocated and re tightened. By the way, you cannot get at the screws when the boat is on the cradle, so there is a bit of tinkering to do there. If you have one, I suggest marking where the arms go for each boat so you can pre adjust everything.

Although not seen in the picture, I have put my old rollers back on. Thule makes an adapter attachment, and the installation took only minutes. Now I just extend the telescoping arm on the left of the front rack. I put the bow on there and then lift the stern onto the rollers. From behind, I use the stern to lever the bow into the front cradle. It goes faster and I can get into the garage with the rollers on. 'nuff said.

Paddle safe...
DS

6 comments:

Unknown said...

maybe you should get a shorter car?

mikehenebry said...

I have for many years used a simple extension bar on my Yakima rack to load my 17-ft boat, loading one end at a time. I have found it to be much less 'fussy' and, of course much cheaper than devices like the Hullivator.

RussJ said...

I think some of the federal stimulus money should have been alloted to build paddlers taller garages.

JohnB said...

When at home, I have convinced my wife to help load and unload my kayak(s)--the most expensive of all the systems.

IowaAdmin said...

John, are you referring to the kayaks or the wife?

Silbs said...

Steve, the year I get a Subaru (great deal) they made it taller.
Mike, we're on the same page.
Russ, I am voting for you.
Iowa...you beat me to the punch.
So, JB, how do I get on Oz's schedule?