What roof racks best for either kite board(s) or SUP

[FoolFully]

Whats the most secure roof racks that can hold one or more kite boards or a standup paddle board?

[sflinux]

I would not recommend Yakima from personal experience (mine flew off on the Freeway, along with my SUP). For a replacement, I looked at Thule and Inno. My car has rain gutters. I don't know the name of the part. But the piece that is squeezed to hold onto the roof of the car. On my Yakima, it had short fingers. I looked at the fingers for the Thule, which were better than Yakima, but neither had as much surface area as the fingers for the Inno, making for a more secure hold. I like the no tools installation for the Inno racks. I found them to be a very impressive design. They even offer a locking tie down accessory. Check them out.

[reyrivera]

I've heard horror stories about Yakima racks falling off cars, but so far, my Yakima system has been rock solid. Bought my 2 door honda civic back in 2003 and installed Yakima racks with extensions. The system uses four compression clips wedge against my door jam. I replace the compression clips every three years just to be safe, that's the only time rack comes out of the car.

I'm careful not to overload the rack, but so far so good. Almost 300,000 miles later with trips along the coast all the way to San Diego, never had a rack failure yet.

Example loads:
1) 4 bikes on the roof
2) Bullet cargo carrier, 9 foot paddle board.
3) 2 long boards and 2 short boards.
4) 2 paddle boards

Just for safety, when I carry long loads, I drive slower and have a safety tether attached to my boards and rack just in case the rack do fall off the car. Don't want to have the boards end up on a windshield of another car.

[WindMuch]

I've used Yakima gear for 30+ years and NEVER had a failure. The stuff seems really solid, well designed and less 'stamped-from-sheet-metal' than the Thule stuff I've seen.

I've driven 100's of thousands of miles with cars ranging from a VW Rabbit, Toyota Corolla, Subaru Forrester, Honda Element, a '79 VW bus and VW Westfalia camper. All the Yakima racks have been super solid with everything from bikes, kayaks, sailboats (Laser), Surfboards (long and short), SUP's, a large cargo pod and kiteboards.

I definitely recommend their stuff...

Kirk out

[friggin old guy]

My kid just bought a Honda Fit and had trouble finding racks that would.....fit.

He ended up taking it to a custom rack place that bolted the racks permanently (I think they were Yakimas but not sure).....he carries ridiculous loads of boards/SUPs so he wanted to be sure it was secure.

I was going to give him a hard time about buying such a weenie little car but the place did a great job of mounting the racks so the load's distributed, secure and aerodynamic to boot. Looks good and he gets freakin unbelievable gas mileage even loaded down with SUPs.

Unfortunately he's down in San Clemente so can't recommend the shop, but you might be ahead to bite the bullet and plop down a couple extra hundos and get a rack permanently secured by a rack shop specializing in installation if you're really concerned about load security and long term stability.