Car-top saddle preferences?

I was wondering what the benefits vs drawbacks would be when considering J-style saddles versus saddles that hold your Yak in a natural flat position?

Ben

I have the saddle type, I believe it's called the glide n set by thule.  Loading and unloading is made fairly easy by the sliding pads that go on the rear bars.  With this system I can load/unload the yak by myself.  Having a bad back and heavy hobie kayak, the J-rack would suck for me.

i have the shark mounts from yakima and they work good, only prob. is they rotate some times when i push the yak on, but if i had square bars they wouldn't and they were cheap like 40 on sale. i had some j-mounts an my 4runner and no go up way to high and strapping it down was way more involved, i would recommend long bars and saddles for two yaks and call it good. Or you could spend mooch o denero and get the hullivators cool but pricey.

I have the Thule Hull A Port ("J Style").  They make it so much easier to mount and dismount the boat.  They also conserve enough rack space so you can haul two boats, one on edge the other flat.  on my little car, that's saying something! haven't had too much trouble with cross wind.  Overall, i love 'em.

The j racks are easy, I just never felt comfortable with them, even though, never has been a problem, and they do sit high if you have a SUV...

with my 4-runner and now suburban, I have pipe insulation that " rolls " as I push the yak over the rollers upside down..  you can even do this with the factory cross bars

if this works for you, there is no better way to hall these yaks on their top rails, you can leave them up there forever... and thieves are not very interested in pipe insulation...

 I'm also now, experimenting with the Yakama saddles, sits much higher, and if I did not have the roller on the back of my Z71 Burb, it would be impossible, but, being I do, this works well too.

I don't feel as comfortable leaving it up there for any length of time with the saddle because of dents in hull after a long stay...