I’ve been out of town all week for work and haven’t had much time to update the blog. Flew back to Baton Rouge this morning and got a chance to upgrade the rack on the my truck with some Yakima products I purchased last week while picking up my Coosa at Pack & Paddle. I got the railgrabs and a boatloader. My crossbars had previously been held up by U-bolts I bought at the local hardware store. They worked great, never slipped, but the exposed screws would scratch my kayaks. I suppose I could have remedied that with some plasti-dip, but I figured I should just go ahead and do it right, hence the railgrab purchase. The boatloader should hopefully solve my issue with loading the Cuda by myself when coming off the water. It is just an extension bar I can rest the front of the kayak on, then load the back on top the rack, basically giving me another set of hands. I like to load my boats upside down on the crossbars, without any saddles or other accessories. The paddle stager on both the Cuda and the Coosa fit the Yakima crossbars perfectly, so the boat sits pretty nicely directly on the crossbars.

Before:

After: