Rightline Gear Kayak Carrier Review

Products Featured in this Video

Rightline Gear Kayak Roof Rack w/ Tie-Downs - Foam Block Style - 14-3/4" Long

2 reviews

Code: RL100K10

Retail: $59.95

Price:  $51.22

• Watersport Carriers
• Kayak
• Roof Mount Carrier
• Foam Blocks

• Aero Bars
• Elliptical Bars
• Factory Bars
• Naked Roofs
• Round Bars
• Square Bars
• Rear Loading
• Side Loading
• Rightline Gear

These foam blocks let you carry your kayak on your roof rack crossbars, factory side rails, or your naked roof. They provide a safe surface between your vehicle and watercraft.

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Review of the Rightline Gear Kayak Carrier

Colin: Hey everyone, it's Colin here at etrailer. And today we're going to go over the Rightline Gear Foam Block Kayak Carrier. Now this is a carrier that you can use for a wide variety of situations, whether you have a roof rack crossbar system or a naked roof, you're going to get these foam blocks on top of your roof. Get your kayak sitting on top of them, kind of like a saddle style carrier, strap it down. And then you're going to be able to get your kayak to the lake, to the river, wherever you want to take it.Now, this system is going to be a more basic or entry-level carrier. This is something where if you're new to kayaking and you're not sure if you're going to keep up with it, it's a nice and easy solution to get your kayak from point A to point B.

But if you find that you're really enjoying the new hobby and you're going a couple of times a week, I'd recommend looking into a different style carrier, maybe a J-hook style. We got one available here at etrailer called the etrailer.com kayak carrier.That one is a carrier that you can leave mounted to your roof rack so that when you get home, you can take your kayak off. With our foam block system, you would have to take the foam blocks off when not in use. With that J style carrier, you could just fold it down, leave it on your roof. So next time you're ready to go out kayaking, you just fold it up, throw your kayak up there, strap it down, you'll be good to go.That's not to say that the foam block here doesn't do a great job because it really does do a great job of holding a kayak and making sure that it is stable for the ride.

But just the fact that you have to take the foam blocks off every time it's not in use could be a little bit of a hassle.The carrier is going to come with all the straps you need to secure it. We've got two sets of straps to secure the main hull of our kayak. And then we also are going to have a set of balanced stern straps that we can secure to prevent any lift from the carrying while we're traveling.And like I've been saying, there's going to be two foam blocks that sit on your roof or on your crossbars that will be supporting your kayak and provides a really solid surface to get your straps run through, secure your kayak on top of it. And it's also a soft surface so you're not going to have to worry about damaging the kayak or your roof rack crossbars or your naked roof if you choose to go that route.You can see we have it on our elliptical style bar right now, but you could also use it for arrow bars and most factory roof racks as well. There is an insert that you would put in this slot if you choose to use this for the naked roof.

We'll go and show you that later when we get the kayak off. But like I said, they're just nice. That wraps around the contours of it, provides a nice solid hold of the crossbar so that you can get your straps run through.Now, there is a cutout right here where you can see our straps sit. This one is kind of pulled up right now against our kayak because of how the buckle works but that is what that cutout is for so your strap is set right in there so that they are too secure. You can see it's just looped around our crossbar right here.If you want to use it for your naked roof, all you would do is just take your vehicle hooks and just feed it through here and then run it through itself.

And from here, you can take your rubber-coated hook and hook it on the inside of your vehicle. But because of how our roof rack is set up, we weren't able to use our rubber-coated hook because it is made to go in the door jam of vehicles.So as you can see with this rear crossbar, there's no door back here. But just to show you guys how it would work, open up this door, find a spot. More times than not, it's going to be but under the weather shipping, you just hook it on just like that. And then you just shut the door.Now, this is the ideal way you would use this if you we're putting this on your naked roof. If you don't have any type of crossbar system, then this is how you would go about it, which is nice because this is a kayak carrier that you don't have to get a roof rack system to use. A lot of other styles out there, like the J hook that I mentioned earlier, you would need a crossbar system.Now below each cam buckle, we're going to have this nice orange rubber pad. Basically, what it's going to do for you is when you're getting your kayak loaded, first, you're going to have your straps ready to go. You can just set that on your rooftop. That's going to protect your paint job from getting scratched by that metal cam buckle.One thing you do want to keep in mind is that with your stern tied down secured, you are going to lose access to your rear hatch. So before you load up your kayak and get it strapped down, just make sure you got everything loaded or unloaded from your trunk. And when you've got your kayak unloaded, whether you're at the water or back at your house, you would just take your foam blocks off, or I've got one of them removed. Got this nice drawstring bag that we can store it in. We also got our straps in there as well at the bottom.And then you can just use that drawstring to tighten it up. You could hang it up on a nail in your garage, store it in your trunk, wherever is convenient. When you're at your destination, my personal advice is to go ahead, open up your trunk, driver's side door or anything, toss it inside your vehicle to help keep it safe.Now I want to go ahead and walk you through setting up your carrier and getting your kayak installed. Now you can see right here, the insert we have. This is where our crossbar would go. I do want to point out, if you are going to use this on a naked roof without a crossbar roof rack, you would just keep this insert in there and then just set the foam block on top of your roof in the desired spot. However, since we're using a crossbar setup, we'll just push this insert out. I would recommend holding onto this, put it in that little carrying sack that it comes with. We'll just toss it aside for now.I'm going to climb up here and get it set to where it's in line with my front block. You can see I have that front block and strap system set up. Just kind of pulled it over, get it on our elliptical style bar. Let's get it over a little bit. There we go. Now we'll start getting our strap system set up.Now for securing the bow of the boat, you're going to have two different straps. We have a short one with the metal cam buckle. Then we have this longer one with the metal cam buckle. On each end, they're each going to have these rubber-coated car hooks that we went over. Now because we already used them for the crossbar setup that you saw earlier, we are going to take these metal hooks off.Sounds pretty easy. We'll just take them off, set them aside. Again, you want to hold onto them in case you ever need them. Now just kind of stick that on pocket. I'll set up this side first. All I'm going to do is wrap it around my crossbar in a through loop and pull up on it. Just let that sit right there. I'm going to do the same thing for the longer strap and I'll run the strap through the center of the block right there.Over here, we're going to do the same thing with that loop, except we're feeding the entire strap through that loop, including the buckle. Again, pull up, make sure it gets tight. We'll set that right there. Now this strap, like I said, is going to run through this center block right here. So just unroll it and just set it in that track right there for now.I'll come back over to that side so we can get it tightened down. Now while pulling on our strap, we're going to feed it through this cam buckle. I'm going to pull pretty tight on it and make sure that block is going to stay secure. I'm just going to go double check both sides just to make sure that strap is not folded over at all. Now it looks like we're ready to grab our kayak.When loading up your kayak, if you do need an extra set of hands, go ahead and ask. But if you can muscle it up yourself, you can go ahead and do that. This Jeep Patriot's not too tall, so not too difficult for me to get it above my head and on the roof rack. You can just get it onto the crossbars. Just set it on there and slide it over to get on the blocks. This makes it easy.That's what's nice about those blocks being strapped down is that they're not going to shift on you while you're loading it. And then go out and just do a walk all the way around and make sure that it's sitting very nicely on your blocks.Now we're just going to toss our straps over top of the kayak to the other side. Now over here on the other side, just make sure you get that strap nice and tight. And I will just feed our strap through the buckle, pull all the way. I'm going to give it a good pull, cinch it down, and then do the same thing for your other strap. And then just make sure you tie if you're excess somewhere.And now we can secure our balance stern tie-downs. You just have these nice metal hooks on them and pull it through there and then just find a nice spot on each side to secure it. We have a hitch on our vehicle right here, so we're just going to take the other hook, put it on that safety chain loop down here, and then we'll tighten it down and then we'll do the other side as well.Now with the bow, there's really no set spot that you've got to put it so make sure you get on something that's going to be very solid. So probably not any type of plastic trimming on your vehicle. If you have any tie-down points underneath your car, you can go there such as a tow hook. With our current vehicle, we're going to go ahead and pop the hood, and then we're going to find a spot underneath the hood that we can tie it down at. Now go ahead and prop it up. Again, you want to find a solid point. The frame right here is going to be pretty good.So we'll go ahead and just hook that on and then leaving our excess out, we'll kind of just pull up on that. Put it back. There we go. Now we'll just cinch it down. It doesn't have to be too tight. Again, these balance stern tie-downs are just preventing it from lifting up. We'll go ahead and tie off the excess.Now you can see our kayak is secure so we're going to be ready to go ahead and hit the road. Well, thank you all for watching. That's going to do it for our look at the Rightline Gear Kayak Carrier.