Rhino Boat Loader - Cross bars

We have had the van parked at Oakbank for a while & been moving about with the F250 only. Noticed a bit of a noise from the boat on the roof & investigation revealed that one of the boatloader cross bars had broken away.

I have always had some doubts about these (aluminium alloy) bars as there was a very noticable bow when the boat was on top.

Anyway we had the cross bars replaced with much heavier duty gavanised iron bars mounted channel up so nyloc nuts could be used. The unit is now significantly more robust albeit a few kilos heavier.

We believe we were very lucky to have noticed the problem while in a city. The guy who did the modification was Roof Rack World (08) 8260 6433 (recommended) - his advice is to tie down the boat front & rear to prevent flexing on bad roads. In the light of our experience this seems sound advice.

Off tomorrow into the painted desert meeting with Graham & Jan and then to the Roper River meeting up with Neil & Maureen et al.

Andy