side rack for the van

[antonputman]

Tail first? Why is that?
I would say the straps create a lot of turbulence with tail first?
I will try to let my wife hold the board tail first and take a picture
Tail first I guess I would need to use ribs 1 +3

[dllee]

38 years of windsurfing says tail first.
But do what you want.

[isobars]

Twist the straps to be sure they don't oscillate and beat up your board.

[swchandler]

Mounting boards anywhere outside on a vehicle creates tons of turbulence, and that means poorer fuel performance and increased road noise overall. You also have to worry about theft. If you elect to mount boards on the sides of the vehicle, you end up with a lower resale value on it in the end because it has holes drilled into it. I could go on and on. The downsides are virtually endless.

[isobars]

Agreed. Other ideas include a longer van, smaller boards, mounting the boards belly up against the inside ceiling, mounting the boards on a roof rack and fabricating a ladder for access, fabricating some easily removable steps in the door openings, etc.

I used a 1" square hollow steel bar/tube as a step that spanned my van's sliding door (when open) and two more to span my front doors (when open). VERY simple (zero tools), quick (seconds) to install or remove, easy to use, full roof access, and they took up no space when stowed. That, along with homemade side-loading racks, made carrying 6 boards up to 12 feet plus several masts on top simple, safe, secure, and very handy. I built a simple carport-type roof against the back of my house and kept the van loaded for bear ... er, wind ... year 'round. Yes, it often went to the office fully loaded, but on an Air Force base it was 100% safe.

Ideas are cheap and limitless. What matters most is what, all things considered, works for YOU.

[cgoudie1]

I know where to get a good one cheap!

-Craig

[isobars]

Or nose first, belly in, if that happens to fit the contour of your vehicle. I can think of two ways to compare the drag among different configurations:
1. Long-term fuel mileage data on windless days. That would take days and hundreds of miles ... er ... km ... of testing per configuration.
2. WFO top speed, for a couple of minutes of testing per configuration. You might wanna wrap a 25-foot (OK, 8-meter ... sheesh) around your whole freaking van for that test until you learn to trust your rack.

[antonputman]

OK, to answer why I even think about a side rack and put the boards outside is because I want to TRY to transition from a windsurf van to a camper van.

Lately, I managed to squeeze those 2 boards, a 5 sail quiver and 2 bikes against the wall of our 5.4m/18 ft van and still have a permanent full size double bed with loads of store underneath (mostly wetsuits, random ws gear and 80L/17gal jerry cans of water extra on top of the 60L/13gal hot shower setup)
I have a box under the bed that I pull out and we use it as a shower pan with a curtain under the roof. We take 2-3 showers each on a typical weekend warrior day, running / biking /wsfing.
The thing is it is getting too much gear and I would like to dedicate some more "quality space" to my wife. The WALL where I store my boards now could be transformed into a removable grid to store clothes. The lower part where I now store my sailstash could become a semi permanent structure with maybe finally a fridge ecc.

Last winter I build an aluminum skeleton under the GRP roof, I rivnutted and bolted airline tracks where the steel work finishes and used that as a base to hang to boards of and the skeleton to hang the bikes of. It is so strong now I could use the skeleton as the base for side racks and even a top rack.
I have a roof vent in the top, so no boards on top unfortunatly.
Is it better on top than on the side?

Another option would be instead of the boards, get the sails out. I could build some sort of a basket to hold 3-4 sails that I could always have access to even if my wife takes a siesta. Better outside to leak the salt water I would say.

For the boards I would not use a side rack for long highway trips but rather to get from spot to spot between smaller villages or to quickly strap a board and leave instead of the strapwork inside. For the big 155L (swiss army knife) board which I use most of the time that's ok, but strapping the FSW board against it with the bikes is starting to begin a PITA.

Thanks for the reactions, always good advice and inspiration on iwindsurf

[antonputman]

Screenshot of the skeleton I will finish in a week or two when the extruded profiles arrive to finish the whole structure (I have now done just ribs 1 + 2)

The connections through the roof will be made with the yellow brackets and the green low profile quick release plates with will be hardly seen when the rack is removed, cargo stuff hardware, made in Germany.

[antonputman]

- Saw this on the Italian North Shore highway this morning! Germans

- Did some digging and found this (German) owner of the exact same van and factory GRP roof. Nose forward, using 1 + 4 positions
Using Airline cargo rails and 2 brackets to hold the board.

- The pics I posted before from the slid-able side rack installed on the Westfalia conversion is a older concept but really interesting. It's called the Sherpas Combi Translift and used to haul luggage, skis, surfboards and even kayaks on the top sliding it from the side, but could be used just as a side rack. German design again.

- I think I will put 4 more anchor points on the top of the roof with the option to set a top rack as well, easy to go back to the side rack option.
Eventually I could integrate a ladder from the side.

Lemme know what you guys think, cheers