Melissa wrote:
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The Yakima racks with "Stackers" should be able to fit two boats very
securely on your car with the 48' cross bars, but if you want, I see
no problem with getting the 58 inch bars (I use 58 inch bars on my
Subaru GL wagon, and I've carried two single and one tandem sea
kayaks on it without any problem). Most of the time, however, I just
carry one or two singles, both in the old TLC cradles (these work
better with my hard chine boats than the newer "Mako" cradles). I
tried the Mako cradles at one point, and returned them right away.

Now, I too have been told that we *shouldn't* use cross bars that
extend beyond the sides of the car, but I've been using my long bars
for many years now, and 1) they've been very useful in that
configuration, and 2) I haven't yet been arrested for it. :-)

I've used my current roofrack on the last three cars I've had (a Ford
Focus wagon and two different Skoda Octavia's (same size platform as the
VW Golf). It's 160cm (roughly 63") wide, which allows for five playboats
and a set of paddles in the paddle holders. A pictu
http://kayaker.nl/kam-oct.jpg

I've been stopped at the German Czech border once, because according to
the Czech borderguard they were too wide. I asked him what the problem
was, since although they are sticking out over the roof, they aren't
outside the body of the car. Then the German borderguard came up and
made the remark that as long as they don't stick out beyond the side of
the vehicle, it's not an issue. The shape of the roof doesn't matter.

It's impossible to catch a pedestrian, bicyclist or MacDonalds counter
with them unless they are already going under my wheels. In that case, I
doubt that anyone is going to bother about the roofrack, but that the
driving style will be what gets me into trouble. :-)

Sure, I've had people bump their heads into it, but as long as they
don't damage my roofrack, I don't care! ;-)

Also, I tend to drive quite fast on the German highways (no speeed
limit), with a full complement of boats on top the car has no problem
doing 200km/h (125mph). Even having had to slam on the brakes
occasionally, I've had no problem with either the boats or the roofrack
coming off.

Granted, people tend to be a lot more disciplined while driving at high
speed there, and in case anyone wipes out at the average driving speed
there, there's a lot more than only boats flying around...

--
Wilko van den Bergh wilkoa t)dse(d o tnl
Eindhoven The Netherlands Europe
---Look at the possibilities, don't worry about the limitations.---
http://kayaker.nl/