Pardon your Yakima Hullraisers or consider Yakima Lowriders or Thule 450 Crossroads
What happened to your kayak is a very unfortunate thing indeed, but I wouldn't be so quick to blame your Hullraisers. Mounting J-style cradles (more than one pair even) to factory crossbars like yours is as common a practice as mowing the lawn, but in both cases, things can go wrong. Car rack companies like Yakima and Thule are very conservative and do extensive testing before recommending that a certain carrier can be mounted on a specific vehicle. The Rodeo, with it's weight limit of 165 lbs made the cut, so I think that perhaps the crossbar itself was cracked or fatigued in some way or that it wasn't tight on the siderails, and as a result, failed.
Your crossbars need to withstand a lot more torque when a boat is attached using a J-cradle so there are a few important things to know.
First of all, the minimum spread required to safely carry a kayak using the Hullraiser is 30 inches. Any chance they were closer than that?
Secondly, with any load that extends over the windshield, as kayaks tend to do, Yakima insists that the load be secured to the front and rear of the vehicle. Were you using bow and stern tie downs?
Well, perhaps you were doing everything right, and what is done is done. Now what? I would recommend either the Yakima Lowrider towers with a pair of 48" crossbars or the similar system from Thule, the 450 Crossroads footpack with 50" loadbars. Both system use feet that attach to your siderails and support their respective crossbars, which are made of good old steel and as far as I know, have never, ever snapped in half. You can just remove your one remaining factory crossbar and be done with it.
If you're more into going to your Isuzu dealer and having a new factory crossbar installed, and you're not sold on the J-cradle thing, try a kayak carrier that supports the boat on its hull rather than its side. The Yakima Mako Saddles/Hully Rollers set up or the Thule Glide and Set saddles keep the boat lower to the bars and reduce the torque that is directed to them, but should still be secured with bow/stern tie downs.
Rack on.
Yours,
Racky Rackoon
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