Kayak and Paddleboard Carrier for Exposed Racks - Center Mount - Y-Style - Qty 2

Video Transcript for Exposed Racks Kayak and Paddleboard Carrier Review

Zach: Hey everybody, Zach here at etrailer.com. Today, we're going to take a look at the kayak carriers for Exposed Racks. We're talking about the Exposed Racks for Jeep Wrangler JK, JLs, the Unlimiteds and Gladiators. So today I have it with the soft top down and you can see, I have this kayak pretty far over. So there's a couple of different configurations that you can get with the kayak carriers. The combination I have here today is the hybrid.

So I have an offset in the rear and I have a standard in the front. You can either get two standards, two offsets, or the hybrid like I have here today. And what that allows us to do with this combination is I can get this to the furthest out point on my exposed rack for soft tops, so that leaves the rest of my roof rack for other accessories. I can do the same thing on the other side, get another kayak up there.I could put bikes, whatever I wanted to put on the other side. Where if I just had the two standards, I would need to move it closer to the center there because the crossbars don't match up with their length.

The center part of those connection points with the exposed rack, those match up, but the outer connection points don't match up just because those crossbars are a little bit longer. So I think this setup is really nice for me because this Jeep is stock, but if I had a lifted Jeep and I was trying to get my kayak up in this position, it would be a little bit more challenging to get it to the center of my Jeep, where here on the outermost edge of it, it's a little bit easier to slide that up in place. So for me with that, I like this style of kayak here.I kind of liked the saddle or Y style versus the J. I think the J style allows you to get more boats up on there if you're looking to take a lot of friends with you, but I like this one. I liked that it's down.

I just feel more confident. There's not a better way, but I think if you've got a really wide fishing boat or fishing kayak, or you've got something that's a little bit longer, I like this style of mounting it. Now, when it comes to what comes in the kit, you will get the foam pads that go around the steel bars there, so you can protect the finish of your boat. It's also going to come with the proper straps to get it secured down. Now, for me, I have this tied down in two different ways here.

So Exposed Racks recommends the way I have it on the back.That's where the strap is going around the crossbar. So it goes underneath and then back up over, and then you can see here, it has these little tabs right here that the strap holds itself in place. Now, I don't think that the strap is quite long enough. I wish I had a little bit more of a tail in there to make me feel a little bit more confident about it. But I think that this is going to be still a good way of going about it. Now on the front, I did it a little bit differently. So I only went around the tabs. There's an identical tab on the opposite side of this kayak carrier. And I have it secured that way. So most of the time when we do kayaks, we run it through the crossbar and that's how Exposed Racks wants you to do it.I think that is the best way to go. It's just that strap is a little bit short for my preference. So you might want to look into getting something a little bit longer. It's just a quick cam buckle style strap. Now the balanced sterns that I have in place, those are not included. I highly recommend getting a bow and stern strap. I've seen them going down the highway, lots of people don't put them in place and you should. It adds a little bit more security to keeping your kayak in place. Now I just have the etrailer cam buckle straps with some traditional kayak anchors in place. So I don't have to run hooks or the straps around the full body and find a weird spot to anchor those in place.One thing I did notice is there's a little bit of play here with the kayak here. Now, this boat isn't very big. It's just a recreational kayak. And I think you're going to have that with anything really. It's just kind of how the quickly connectors for Exposed Racks are. There's a little bit of play, but with the straps in place and the kayak carrier secured down in those crossbars, you're going to be all right.So what I like about this setup with all of the Exposed Racks, but especially my kayak is having the top off. It's really nice. Now, one thing is when you first get it out of the water, you might have some water dripping down inside, but I don't think that's big of a deal. It's a Jeep. So I'm going to go through a little bit of a bumps course here. So you can kind of get an idea how much this is going to kind of move around a little bit.And this is pretty common with a lot of kayaks, but you can see it's pretty sturdy. It's sliding around a little bit, but that's why we have those straps in place. And I was talking about that rocking back and forth. And as I'm hitting these speed bumps, now I'm going at a pretty slow speed, but that gives you an idea is how much that's going to move around as we're going down the road. But overall, I think this is a really cool setup. I like being able to kind of look up and see my full setup and see my kayak up there. I think this is a really cool way to carry our kayak to the river or whatever body of water you're going to.So with this one being on the outside, like we have here with that hybrid style, that's why I really like having it on the edge. I don't have to go all the way to the center to get my kayak off of here. I can get it right here and get it set down in place. Instead of having to reach all the way over there, get up on my seats to try to reach my kayak. You can see this is going to give us good protection to protect our finish. You can remove that though, and take a closer look to the structure here. It's going to be a nice solid steel construction. This design here is really going to accommodate those holes to rest down in there. We have really good range there so we can get some kayaks that are a little bit wider. We're looking at 31 inches in that overall length there. And to show you how easy these are, you can pop that out and we'll just push that ball back in and we slide it down in those squares in our bar, and then they're in place. You just get that pad back on there and we're ready to load up our kayak.One thing to keep in mind with the Exposed Racks, whether you're new to them, or you already have them is the mounting locations on the bars don't always match up. Now with the JL Unlimited that we have here today the rear crossbar is not as long as the front crossbar. So the outer mounting location does not match up with the crossbars. The center three ones, those do. So if we want that kayak to sit on the furthest out that we can get it, you would think put it in the furthest out mounting location. So if I did that with just the standard, like I have here, you can see where that center section of that kayak is or the carrier. So it's right here. If I went straight back, I don't have a mounting location there. So if I use the standard, it wouldn't match up. So using the offset that gets the center of our kayak carrier further out. So we have a nice parallel way to mount our kayak. Now, if you don't care about putting it out further, the way we have it here, you don't want it overhanging. You do run the risk of hitting your head, getting in and out of the Jeep with this, it extends out like that. You can just get the standard and you can mount it on those center locations.So now that we have the standard setup and we'd put our kayak back in place, you can see it's sitting a little bit more on the roof. I don't have all that overhang. So I think the benefit of that is we don't run the risk of hitting our head, getting in and out of the vehicle, but we do have to reach a little bit further to get it loaded on and take it off. And we're taking up a little bit more real estate on our roof. So we're not going to be able to get another set over there. So you get two offset setups. You can get two of them on here, and you're not sticking out quite as far as the hybrid system, but it also allows you to, if you just use one, to get it sitting on here one way and you still have a little bit more room on the other side. So I have this in the furthest out of those center locations, that line up so we can put it in the same spot on the front and back. We're getting a little bit closer to the edge, but I'm not running the risk nearly as much of hitting my head as I did with that hybrid style.But overall guys, I think this is a really cool setup. For me, I like the hybrid system. I like being able to get my kayak further out, it makes it easier to load it up. But it gives me all that space on the other side to get something else in place, whether it's another kayak or my bikes or a basket. I think that if you're looking for something to use with this exposed rack, you can get another kayak area that's fine, but they're not going to allow you to get them this far out. So if you're looking for something to take out with the Jeep and have the top off, the exposed rack kayak carriers is a really good way to go..