Running in the background all day yesterday and today is a woot-off. Woot is a site (www.woot.com) that offers up one great deal a day (usually on gadgets and electronics). Most of the time the deal isn’t something we are interested in. Sometimes it tempts us. Sometimes we actually buy something. Once a month or so the site has a woot-off. In a woot-off items are put on sale, one at a time, until they sell out. Then another item is put on sale. There is another site (http://www.mywoot.net/) that provides a running tally on the item for sale tracking what per-cent is left of the item and when it is sold-out. Then it announces the next item up for sale with a rooster crow to let you know it’s time to look at the new item. The reason it is important to catch the switch to a new item is the woot bag of crap. Once during the woot-off, usually at the end, the put on sale a brown paper bag of crap for $0.99. It contains anything they have lying around the warehouse from a packet of silica gel or a lollipop to nice things like printers and camcorders. The bag of crap sells out very quickly so if you don’t catch it right away you don’t have a chance at it. That’s why we monitor the site all day during woot-offs. The last woot-off was when we bought our new computer. We haven’t bought a bag of crap yet and this is the 4th woot-off we’ve monitored.
Now, back to the kayaks. My problem last time was the cross-bar on my roof rack wasn’t wide enough to carry the three kayaks. I replaced the crossbars with 6-ft lengths of ¾-inch galvanized pipe. The pipe is a hair narrower than the stock bar but it works OK. The pipe has threaded ends. That feature solved another issue as you will see later.
The 6-ft length is perfect for the job. I can get both single kayaks on the sides on the Hullraiser carriers and the big tandem kayak goes in the center on the Hulley rollers.
The only difficulty with this arrangement is putting my single kayak on the side mount carrier. I looked at all sorts of lift-assist mechanisms. I scratched out some interesting designs with ratchets and pulleys but decided first to try the simplest solution—an extension bar and a small step ladder.
The fact that the end of the pipe was threaded made for an easy way to make the extension bar. I used a ¾ to ½ inch coupler and a 4 ft ½-inch pipe to do the trick. To mount the kayak I first lift one end onto the extension bar. Then lift the other end and place it on the rack. Then it’s back to the other end to put it on the rack. Finally some adjusting and the kayak is up. This method is easier because you only have to lift one side of the kayak at a time and that is a much more manageable weight to get up that high.
The finished product
The extension bar
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