Yak Tie-Downs

Has anyone thought about or come up with a permanent yak tie-down system that would stay on the roof racks all the time? A strap you just flop over the yak once and fasten instead of having to go back and forth a couple times at each end of the car. I'm thinking something like this would also be great on a RollEez cart! Just seems this would save a lot of time and energy that we could use for fishing. When I get some time I'll try a few things. Any ideas or suggestions are always appreciated. Tom

A guy I work with uses tie downs that has an elastic/bungie section on his kayak and windsurf board.  I think the strap was made by Da Kine.  I'll see if I can find it online.

I seem to recall a post here about a flexible metal strap that flopped over and locked... it was fixed on the middle part of the rack....that might be the Da Kine thing, the poster explained it was for surfboards but the strap was long enough to go over a yak.  I think I've seen something like it on some surfboards on cars around here. Search for "lock" or "locking"

Here's the metal surfboard strap thing:
http://www.norcalkayakanglers.com/index.php?topic=7161.0

I used to loop the tiedowns around the center of each load bar, throw both ends over the kayak, position the buckle, and loop the ends around the outer ends and foot of the loadbars. When I got smart , I marked that center loop on each tiedown and ran the two loose ends around the bar, through the loop, and tightened it so they both stay on my load bars permanently. When I carry my boat, I still throw both straps over the boat and fasten them the same way on the outer ends of the load bars. When my rack is empty, I throw the loose ends into the back door of the car to "store" them. No fidgeting any more to get the buckle positioned properly--woohoo!

Janice aka "Big J"

NRS has some cool loop ended straps for about $5-6 each. You can just larks-head them around your bars like Janice mentioned. I made a couple of sets myself (for my roleeze cart) using regular straps-I just cut them in half and sewed loops on one end of each half. I also have a ghetto set that I just tied into loops, it used to live on my rack then "dissapeared" one day at the beach.