Hauling your board in short bed pickup

[Bean]

No doubt some great suggestions but I would lean toward the simplicity of the tailgate pad for shorter trips. 

[Larry2c]

OK, I did a short haul test today with the tail of the board on a thick foam pad (truck bed has Linex so I don't want the board all scratched up), Dakine tailgate pad with strap and a tie down in the front of the bed over the fin.

I will say it is not confidence inspiring. I seriously doubt the board could fly out strapped down like I had it but I can see some buffeting when I look in the mirror.

So here's what I'm looking at for my alternative solution - TracOne at Home Depot.
http://www.homedepot.com/p/TracRac-TracOne-800-lb-Capacity-Universal-Truck-Rack-27000-01/203346592?cm_mmc=Shopping%7cTHD%7cG%7c0%7cG-BASE-PLA-D25T-Tools%7c&gclid=CMX4zdSmns4CFYpufgodFAMO0Q&gclsrc=aw.ds

Ayone have one of these? I found some reviews on a kayak forum and they were all pretty positive

[Dkyachtphoto]

OK, I did a short haul test today with the tail of the board on a thick foam pad (truck bed has Linex so I don't want the board all scratched up), Dakine tailgate pad with strap and a tie down in the front of the bed over the fin.

I will say it is not confidence inspiring. I seriously doubt the board could fly out strapped down like I had it but I can see some buffeting when I look in the mirror.

So here's what I'm looking at for my alternative solution - TracOne at Home Depot.
http://www.homedepot.com/p/TracRac-TracOne-800-lb-Capacity-Universal-Truck-Rack-27000-01/203346592?cm_mmc=Shopping%7cTHD%7cG%7c0%7cG-BASE-PLA-D25T-Tools%7c&gclid=CMX4zdSmns4CFYpufgodFAMO0Q&gclsrc=aw.ds

Ayone have one of these? I found some reviews on a kayak forum and they were all pretty positive

I started with a similar product to these but very quickly didn't like them. That bed Extender I mentioned earlier works perfect. I bought 3 square foam blocks about 3' wide to put under the boards to protect from the linex and to put on top of the extender. We've done dozens of highway trips this way doing 80mph with nothing budging. Plus with it being low in the bed it makes it that much easier to load and unload.

Dave

[Dkyachtphoto]

Here's the blocks I got on amazon

Dave

[surf4food]

I'm surprised you didn't consider using a truck bed rack system like Yakima or Thule.  What I see a lot of in Hawaii is a set up consisting of one truck bed rack and one roof rack.

[mrbig]

Am showing some pics of the low budget setup. Nothin' beats a cheap pair of sunglasses!

Seen too many rear ended bed extenders with crushed boats. No Buenos!

[SUP Leave]

I have a Tundra with a 5.5' bed. I just was not comfortable with anything longer than an 8'6" board hanging out the back so I bought Thule roof racks for the cab. On these long cabs you can get a really good rack spread and any board is can ride up theree. With it hanging out the back as shown, you can't pull into a parking spot without having a bunch of board out in the traveled way. Dangerous for pedestrians to whack their heads, or worse a UPS truck hitting your board.

I'm confident in the roof rack system and it leaves the bed available for other crap. If I was just going 10 miles or so to surf I wouldn't need it but it is 40 miles to my favorite spot and the roof rack provides flexibility to be able to stop etc. Plus, you can leave the boards up on the rack if you know you are going again soon. My laziness level is such that I will leave the boards on the rack if I am going to surf within 2 days of the last session.

[robon]

I have hauled a 12'6" and 11'6" in a 6 foot box/mazda/ranger many times. Both short and long distances with no problems. The biggest concern was the tailgate coming down, not the board flying out. My 12'6" at the time was the old Starby Race with a lot of volume up front, so I loaded it nose first with a thin piece of foam to protect the nose and the factory design of the box had a ridge that kept the nose held firm. Tailgate pad with one strap ahead of the tailgate through the factory tie downs. Done. I prefer a rack for a board this long, but you can definitely transport a 12'6" board this way in a 6 foot box no problem, and an 11 footer in a deep 5 foot box is easy to do as well. A rack is ultimately the way to go, but you can get where you need to be with a tailgate pad and a secure strap down for sure.

[Larry2c]

Thanks everyone for the suggestions - lots of good ones out there

Surf4Food - I looked for a setup like that but didn't find any that were in the "reasonable" price range. It was like I was paying for a bed system and a roof system. If you have a link to something more reasonably priced, I'd be glad to take a look.

 SUP Leave - I considered the roof mount but the one for my F150 Super Crew had something like a 36" span between the cross rails. That's a foot shorter than what my Explorer racks were and just seems too short a span. The bed racks will give me 5' between the cross rails.

I have ordered the TracOne from Home Depot and it will be here in about 2 weeks. Once I get it installed and try it out I'll post back up and let everyone know if it is a good value or not. I know it won't be everyone's cup of tea but it's always good to know what's quality and what's not.

[SUPflorida]

Interested to hear your take on the TracOne after you get it set up. I'm looking for something for my Tundra Crewmax short bed. When you look at the prices of most of these racks you have to say they sure are "proud" of them. The TracOne seems like the biggest bang for the buck...on paper anyway.

What I would really rather have is a fiberglass shell and mount racks on it..like I have on my dedicated beach truck, but need to find a used one in great shape. The ones I looked at so far were well over 2K new. I could build two carbon 14's and a 8' surf shape for that...

[GOTWAVZ]

Thule Rack works great, I keep it below the top of the roof to help, ease on and off, also helps with noise and MPG. If I need to bring a race board I bump them up, they are totally adjustable.  Worth the money, not risking losing your board or hurting/killing someone when it flies out of your bed after your ruby Goldberg knots untie.

[SlatchJim]

your ruby Goldberg knots untie.

It just so happens that Rube Goldberg had some ideas on what to do with the roof of your car...

[Larry2c]

Hi all - I said I'd post back up once I got the new rack from Home Depot and let folks know what I thought so here goes. The rack is a TracONE fromTracRac and I got it from Home Depot online (none available in local stores to get a look at before I ordered). When I picked up the box my first thought was that the add lied - it felt too heavy to be aluminum. When I got home and opened it up, I saw that it was indeed aluminum, it was just pretty heavy duty. the cross rails and the upright tubes are a fairly heavy extrusion. The fittings that go on the bed rails and connect the upright to the cross rail are cast aluminum  and pretty substantial. All of the bolts are high quality though I would have liked to have seen more of them in stainless steel (only the bolts that hold the rail end caps on and the cross rail hold down bolts are SS). The steel bolts do appear to be plated so hopefully they will be rust resistant.

Assembly was pretty straight forward and took me about an hour for just getting the pieces all bolted together. Next came fitting it up on the side rails of the bed - again this was straight forward and even with the Ford plastic rail protectors, the brackets fit on well. The clamps that hold the fittings to the bed rail are also cast and seem heavy duty - though this does make them less than a glamorous addition to the truck. Because my truck had the plastic rail protectors and they have a ribbed area that ends near the tailgate, I had to shim the aft end of the mounting fittings (I uses some 3/16 neoprene and it seemed to work very well).

Once it was all bolted/clamped in place, I grabbed the rails and tried to shake them - nothing doing, solid as a rock. I then took the truck for a test drive listening for rattles or wind noise - didn't hear anything new. That was followed by attempting to put my Dakine roof rack pads on (saved them from my Explorer). Unfortunately the oval bars on the rack are quite a bit wider/thicker than the old roof rack so the Velcro strips on the pads wouldn't reach across. I remedied this  by going to Lowes and getting a few feet of the adhesive type heavy duty Velcro. this worked pretty well but I'm a bit leery of just the Velcor holding them on so I used some black zip ties to cinch the ends down - that seems to be a pretty good solution for now.

I then loaded the board on the racks, strapped it down and went for a quick 70 mph test drive. I couldn't detect any vibration coming from the board or racks and when I got back home  the board was still in the same place I put so I think it will be just fine. It is a bit more of a hassle to load than the roof racks on the explorer but not anything I will worry about.

So for now I'm very satisfied with the apparent quality and the functionality of the rack. If I went for the Thule I would have had something a bit more elegant and adjustable but the price is roughly twice what I paid. Yakima has a rack system as well but it really doesn't look that good and also costs a couple hundred more than this rack. To me, this is a good option. It looks like it will hold up well but only time will tell on that. I am posting up some pics just to show the pices and parts as well as how it looks on the truck. Hopefully someone will find this info useful - I'd like to think I can pay back a bit of the knowledge that has been shared with me on this site.

[mikeschratz]

I am new to this forum, thank you to all for all the great ideas.
A friend of mine came up with this idea for my F250 Short bed.
It has worked out great and the back part can just be slid out of the PVC pipes and stored with the boards.

[Dkyachtphoto]

I am new to this forum, thank you to all for all the great ideas.
A friend of mine came up with this idea for my F250 Short bed.
It has worked out great and the back part can just be slid out of the PVC pipes and stored with the boards.

Could you post a pic from inside the bed facing towards the rear so we can see how it mounts to your truck please. Looks really nice!

Dave