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Details of Bow and Stern Lines for Kayak, Canoe, etc on the roof: Tow eye? Attached Hood Loop? Quick Hood Loop? Hitch? Attaching some other way?

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I plan to frequently haul sea kayaks, a white water kayak, or a canoe on a MYLR with a tow hitch and Tesla roof racks. I will always use bow and stern lines. This post is seeking information to help me decide where and how I am going to attach my bow and stern lines to the MYLR. My EDD is this month, so I am trying to purchase those things I'll need almost immediately.

For stern lines, I personally hope to use my $1,000 tie-down point, the tow hitch. However, I have never actually seen the Model Y tow hitch. I've read complaints about the plastic cover. Would just leaving the cover off be reasonable? Any other gotchas or tricks to using the tow hitch? Any experience reports appreciated.

There are a number of options for bow lines, many of which would also work for stern lines.

Tow eye.
  • Positives:
    • One comes with the car.
    • It would certainly be more than strong enough.
  • Downsides:
    • The owner's manual notes: "The front tow eye cover is connected to the vehicle's black negative (-) terminal." Powering that wire releases the frunk latch if and only if the 12 volt battery is too dead to do the job. So need to deal with that wire somehow if using tow eye for a bow line.
    • Having the tow eye installed somewhat defeats the purpose of having a bumper. The tow eye is attached firmly enough to tow the car. Bump something with the tow eye, and something is going to break.
  • Questions:
    • How do people who use the front tow eye deal with that wire, and the attached cover?
    • Do you leave the tow eye installed all the time?
  • Any experience reports welcome.

Bolt an attached hood loop somewhere under the hood.

Quick Hood Loop. Basically a loop of webbing that generally goes through some tubing which gets trapped when you close the hood.
  • Examples:
  • Positives:
    • Cheap
  • Downsides:
    • Given Tesla's instructions about how to carefully close the hood with two hands, a bow quick loop might not be a great match.
    • If you open the hood, the loop comes loose.
  • Questions:
    • Anyone use these with the hood or hatch?
  • Any experience reports good or bad?
Anyone want to offer details of other bow or stern line tie-down options?

Before posting this, I searched the forum. If these users are still around, I would appreciate them posting more details.

@smatthew would you expand upon your comment about the locking loop on the hood?
Hood loop works great for trunk, not so great for frunk.
For the frunk, just put the strap through the locking loop on the hood.
in thread What are my best options to carry a kayak or surfboards on/with my Tesla Model 3, 2022? I did not yet buy the Tesla cross bars.

@Bill135 more details about your front and rear tie downs would be wonderful. Especially where do you attach the loop strap to the frunk?
Carry two kayaks. No big deal. Use one Malone cradle and pads on the other side to carry the other kayak flat. Tie the rear off to the tow hitch and the front off to a soft double loop strap attached the frunk. I use cut pool noodles to protect paint at the contact points. Carrying kayaks really impacts range, especially anything over 60, probably adds on the order of 100-150 watt/ mile. Photo doesn’t show rear and front tie downs.
in thread Portaging Kayaks?

@Jrzapata I could not tell from your picture how you were dealing with the wire connected to the front tow eye cover.
in thread Model 3 with 5 bikes

Thanks everyone! If I just waited until I took delivery, some of this might be clearer. However, I'm certain you can understand my impatience. Hopefully this thread will also be useful for others in the future.
 
Preliminary report.

Now that I have my MY, I better understand the comments by @smatthew and @Bill135 about just using the front locking loop. It certainly looks sturdy. However, my fear is that perhaps one time in a thousand something might go wrong and jamb the locking loop in the closed position. I tied off to the front tow loops on my last car around a thousand times, and hope for the same with my new MY. I don't know if anyone has ever jammed their locking loop, but I don't see an easy fix for it, and I'm nervous about it.

I found the report above by @3sr+buyer that "Quick Hood Loops" have worked fine with his model 3 frunk very reassuring.

I ended up spending $16.99 on a WONITAGO kit from Amazon that included both two quick hood loops, and two of the bolt on style. The primary reason I picked that kit was it had the SHORTEST attached hood loops that I could find. If I'm going to be nervous about something potentially jamming the locking loop, I didn't want attached hood loops causing problems.

Installation was trivial with a 10mm socket wrench. Take one bolt off, reinstall bolt with attached hood loop under Tesla washer until tight. Repeat with other loop. I oriented the loops so that they would be totally out of the way when not in use.
IMG_20220415_162530911_HDR.jpg



My model Y is just big enough to fit my White Water kayak inside, and I probably won't start hauling my sea kayak until after spring run off. So I have not yet used my hood loops as tie downs. However, I have now driven for hours at highway speeds in the rain without noticing any issues in the idle position. The loops also appear to extend out enough to be usable when the frunk is closed. I have my fingers crossed.
 
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Pics please when you get the kayak on the Tesla. Thanks.
I did my first dry run today, and took some pictures.

First I took the cover off my hitch for the first time. It was reasonably easy using the tools I purchased when I purchased my SnapPlate. See this YouTube demo:

IMG_20220508_161819601_HDR.jpg

Note that I did NOT trim the hitch cover or receiver. It came as shown from the factory.

Second I mounted my old 2015 Thule Hull-a-port Pro #835PRO folding J-Racks. I would be much happier if the screws were longer. They are hopefully just barely adequate. Unfortunately, so far Thule support has basically only been willing to say "The Thule fit engineers may not have approved a roof rack for your vehicle." Thule has not been willing to give me any adapter information. I've put Thule bars on three different vehicles, purchased at least eight different Thule attachments for those bars, and recommended Thule to many friends. My love of Thule ended today.

Third I ordered a Yakima JayLow Kayak Carrier, because I don't trust those short Thule screws, and unlike Thule the Yakima website was willing to say some of their "universal" kayak racks would work with the Tesla Model Y rack. Note that Tesla reportedly collaborated with Yakima when designing the rack.

Then I did my usual kayak tie downs and took it out for a test drive.
IMG_20220508_174736199_HDR.jpg


Here are the front loops in action that I posted about previously in this thread.
IMG_20220508_161749162_HDR.jpg


Yes, I do normally use two bow lines regardless of whether I am carrying one or two kayaks. That started about a decade ago after the second time I drove under a parking garage at work forgetting a kayak was on top of the passenger side. While dual bow lines may be only a slight improvement for attaching the kayak to the car, dual lines have been a huge improvement at reminding me there is a kayak up there.

Here is how the rear line to the tow hitch ran.
IMG_20220508_161809575_HDR.jpg

The kayak shown is the 14 foot long F1 model Cape Falcon Kayak design. I built this one in my garage. See Cape Falcon Kayak and Build Your Own Skin-on-Frame Kayak for details and plans.

The test drive bad news is this combination starts getting noisy above 50 mph, and is very noisy above 70 mph.

The good news is I didn't notice any issues except noise even when I pushed it up to 80 mph. Autosteer also worked fine.
 
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I am happy to see you getting this figured out. Our delivery keeps getting pushed out, but hopefully not for too much longer. I am hoping to be able to put my kayaks on top for local river trips and for trips to the west coast from Colorado without too much of a hit on range. My boat is not a skin on frame,
But it’s provided me with a lot of fun. I’ve been carrying it on top of my Tacoma which works great but burns a lot of fuel. I’d be interested to hear what your range is with the kayak on top.
29978B34-5892-4EDA-BCF7-23348C8C7A9F.jpeg
 
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Post in thread 'How to transport a Canoe with a Model 3' How to transport a Canoe with a Model 3

I haven't had any problems. Dozens and dozens of trips now since 2019. Many long ones up into Canada. Holds pretty good in the frunk. Most of the stuff I keep in there is for launch. Also a nice place for straps so I don't lose them.
 
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If you have the space for a watersports trailer, I highly recommend the Malone MicroSport in conjunction with the V style kayak carriers. This was very stable for us on a 800 mile round trip from GA to FL cruising at 65 mph. We're limited by the speed rating of the trailer tires. I used to carry these on the roof of our Honda, but I decided I didn't want a permanent rack on our Y for aero reasons.


IMG_4675.jpg
 
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Second I mounted my old 2015 Thule Hull-a-port Pro #835PRO folding J-Racks. I would be much happier if the screws were longer. They are hopefully just barely adequate. Unfortunately, so far Thule support has basically only been willing to say "The Thule fit engineers may not have approved a roof rack for your vehicle." Thule has not been willing to give me any adapter information...

The test drive bad news is this combination starts getting noisy above 50 mph, and is very noisy above 70 mph.
I went out yesterday with just the folded J-Racks, no kayak. I was surprised how noisy the bare racks were.
 
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I went out yesterday with just the folded J-Racks, no kayak. I was surprised how noisy the bare racks were.
J-racks (folded or not) tend to be not aerodynamic, so more noise and energy consumption is expected.

V-racks with the ends removed when not in use are probably better due to less frontal area, but still have some noise.

The glass roof is not great for noise insulation.
 
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I am happy to see you getting this figured out. Our delivery keeps getting pushed out, but hopefully not for too much longer. I am hoping to be able to put my kayaks on top for local river trips and for trips to the west coast from Colorado without too much of a hit on range. My boat is not a skin on frame,
But it’s provided me with a lot of fun. I’ve been carrying it on top of my Tacoma which works great but burns a lot of fuel. I’d be interested to hear what your range is with the kayak on top.
Because of your post I kept some notes when I took my sea kayak to the ocean. I knew I was driving past multiple superchargers, so I wasn't worried about range, but I did precondition and bump my charge limit up to 85%. The round trip was 126 miles, and I still had 30% left when I got home. If the majority of my day trips allow me to get home before I need to charge, life is good.

My model Y's trip page said I used 38kWh and averaged 304 Wh/mi for the round trip. For reference the trip page also said my Lifetime average was 289 Wh/mi. (I renamed Trip B to Lifetime the day my car was delivered.)

Before someone starts thinking carrying a kayak on the roof improves range, I should point out that I was driving through the fringes of rush hour traffic both ways to kayak. The slower you drive the better your Wh/mi figure is going to be. I normally get to totally avoid rush-hour traffic, but someone else picked the start time and location for the kayak trip. In fact I glanced at the trip numbers before I hit the stop-and-go traffic and remember seeing 337 Wh/mi while driving in the RUSHED-hour traffic around 70 mph.

The best advice I have for you is to go to ABRP and under advanced settings set your reference consumption to 340 Wh/mi. Then plug in your favorite destinations as round trips and see what it predicts. That is similar to what I did before ordering my Tesla. A Better Route Planner made it very clear that in the northern rural parts of my state charging a Tesla would generally be at most a minor inconvenience, while any other brand would be painful.

So far there is only one long day trip that I have taken twice into the northern part of my state. It is the only route I've taken where the Tesla added a supercharger stop to my trip. The first time I actually stopped at every supercharger I came near to check them out. The second time I stopped at one in a doughnut shop's parking lot. I plugged in, I used the bathroom, I bought a treat, I unplugged. On the way back I did the same thing, mainly for the bathroom. I barely need the second charge. No actual waiting for charging was involved.

Your mileage may vary, but so far I've found charging to be a non-issue for day trips in my Model Y LR.
 
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Because of your post I kept some notes when I took my sea kayak to the ocean. I knew I was driving past multiple superchargers, so I wasn't worried about range, but I did precondition and bump my charge limit up to 85%. The round trip was 126 miles, and I still had 30% left when I got home. If the majority of my day trips allow me to get home before I need to charge, life is good.

My model Y's trip page said I used 38kWh and averaged 304 Wh/mi for the round trip. For reference the trip page also said my Lifetime average was 289 Wh/mi. (I renamed Trip B to Lifetime the day my car was delivered.)

Before someone starts thinking carrying a kayak on the roof improves range, I should point out that I was driving through the fringes of rush hour traffic both ways to kayak. The slower you drive the better your Wh/mi figure is going to be. I normally get to totally avoid rush-hour traffic, but someone else picked the start time and location for the kayak trip. In fact I glanced at the trip numbers before I hit the stop-and-go traffic and remember seeing 337 Wh/mi while driving in the RUSHED-hour traffic around 70 mph.

The best advice I have for you is to go to ABRP and under advanced settings set your reference consumption to 340 Wh/mi. Then plug in your favorite destinations as round trips and see what it predicts. That is similar to what I did before ordering my Tesla. A Better Route Planner made it very clear that in the northern rural parts of my state charging a Tesla would generally be at most a minor inconvenience, while any other brand would be painful.

So far there is only one long day trip that I have taken twice into the northern part of my state. It is the only route I've taken where the Tesla added a supercharger stop to my trip. The first time I actually stopped at every supercharger I came near to check them out. The second time I stopped at one in a doughnut shop's parking lot. I plugged in, I used the bathroom, I bought a treat, I unplugged. On the way back I did the same thing, mainly for the bathroom. I barely need the second charge. No actual waiting for charging was involved.

Your mileage may vary, but so far I've found charging to be a non-issue for day trips in my Model Y LR.
Thanks. This is very helpful and encouraging. I will definitely try your ABRP trick to help calculate range. Still don’t have our car, but hopefully in the next couple of weeks.
 
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Can you add any details? How long is your kayak? Removal of headrest, laying down front passenger seat perhaps and no passengers?
Definitely no other passengers. The passenger side seat needs to be moved forward. The rear seats obviously need to be folded down.
Here is a picture from my Model Y test drive, where I test fitted the kayak.
Tesla_Test_Drive_Kayak_Fits.jpg


The white water kayak in question is a Wave Sport model Fuse 64, now out of production.
LENGTH: 7' / 213 CM WIDTH: 26" / 66 CM
according to FUSE 64 - WhiteOut
 
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I plan to frequently haul sea kayaks, a white water kayak, or a canoe on a MYLR with a tow hitch and Tesla roof racks. I will always use bow and stern lines. This post is seeking information to help me decide where and how I am going to attach my bow and stern lines to the MYLR. My EDD is this month, so I am trying to purchase those things I'll need almost immediately.

For stern lines, I personally hope to use my $1,000 tie-down point, the tow hitch. However, I have never actually seen the Model Y tow hitch. I've read complaints about the plastic cover. Would just leaving the cover off be reasonable? Any other gotchas or tricks to using the tow hitch? Any experience reports appreciated.

There are a number of options for bow lines, many of which would also work for stern lines.

Tow eye.
  • Positives:
    • One comes with the car.
    • It would certainly be more than strong enough.
  • Downsides:
    • The owner's manual notes: "The front tow eye cover is connected to the vehicle's black negative (-) terminal." Powering that wire releases the frunk latch if and only if the 12 volt battery is too dead to do the job. So need to deal with that wire somehow if using tow eye for a bow line.
    • Having the tow eye installed somewhat defeats the purpose of having a bumper. The tow eye is attached firmly enough to tow the car. Bump something with the tow eye, and something is going to break.
  • Questions:
    • How do people who use the front tow eye deal with that wire, and the attached cover?
    • Do you leave the tow eye installed all the time?
  • Any experience reports welcome.

Bolt an attached hood loop somewhere under the hood.

Quick Hood Loop. Basically a loop of webbing that generally goes through some tubing which gets trapped when you close the hood.
  • Examples:
  • Positives:
    • Cheap
  • Downsides:
    • Given Tesla's instructions about how to carefully close the hood with two hands, a bow quick loop might not be a great match.
    • If you open the hood, the loop comes loose.
  • Questions:
    • Anyone use these with the hood or hatch?
  • Any experience reports good or bad?
Anyone want to offer details of other bow or stern line tie-down options?

Before posting this, I searched the forum. If these users are still around, I would appreciate them posting more details.

@smatthew would you expand upon your comment about the locking loop on the hood?

in thread What are my best options to carry a kayak or surfboards on/with my Tesla Model 3, 2022? I did not yet buy the Tesla cross bars.

@Bill135 more details about your front and rear tie downs would be wonderful. Especially where do you attach the loop strap to the frunk?

in thread Portaging Kayaks?

@Jrzapata I could not tell from your picture how you were dealing with the wire connected to the front tow eye cover.
in thread Model 3 with 5 bikes

Thanks everyone! If I just waited until I took delivery, some of this might be clearer. However, I'm certain you can understand my impatience. Hopefully this thread will also be useful for others in the future.
I have just been experimenting with hauling a 24' double kayak on my 2021 Model S (in Alaska). I plan to drive it 200 miles and take a ferry...
I was concerned about two things: 1) stability 2) range impact. The longest leg between charging is ~120 miles, but I didn't want to arrive with only 10% charge...

As for stability, we used the racks from Tesla, which are made by Yakima, and the Yakima "BigCatch" saddles. The rack is rated for 165 lbs, and the saddles for 150lbs; our boat weighs about 90 pounds. The rack mounting points are only three feet apart (90 cm), so I carefully measured where the balance point of our boat was and set the saddles 18" (45 cm) fore and aft of center, I also centered them side-to-side on the rack, guessing this might improve aerodynamics.
I never was much for bow and stern lines attaching a kayak to a roof rack, they can put too much stress on the boat if you are not careful. I have car-topped this boat up and down the Alcan (to Alaska from Seattle) several times without ever using bow and stern lines, and never felt the least bit concerned. However, once we got the 24' beast on top of the Model S, it was clear that bow and stern lines would be needed to stabilize the boat. There is just too much front and rear overhang from the racks to hold it from bouncing up and down too much. The flex in the bars of the roof rack was also a little disconcerting, but hey, the rack is supposedly rated for 165 pounds, and flex is a great design characteristic: our skin-on-frame kayak relies on it over ocean swells (nylon over aluminum tubing lashed together in Alueut style)!

So I was in your dilemma, but maybe a bit more extreme version of it! How to secure bow and stern? The BigCatch saddles come with nylon webbing with a loop and a fastex ladder-slider buckle on one short strap for attachment to the boat (loop the buckle end though the loop and the carry handles on the kayak and cinch down with the buckle hanging), and a long one with only a loop and a short length of plastic sheathing-like clear polyethylene tubing- to protect the car paint for closing in the hood and trunk. The other end of the long webbing is secured through the fastex ladder-slider buckle hanging from the boat. We tried this, but the frunk webbing kept slipping out, the line got loose at 45 mph or so. The frunk wouldn't close properly with the webbing secured to the metal loop on the hood.
So, we installed the front tow-eye (reverse threads!) and didn't worry too much about those wires. If my interpretation is correct, they won't be carrying any current, unless you have jump-start cables attached to them! The liftback held the stern line securely, but still, it seemed an inelegant solution that needed to be re-secured every time the liftback was opened. I ordered another tow-eye by searching the web and finding one at an auto parts store in the San Fernando Valley (P/N 1077570-00-D, the same for Model 3, and refresh S, and probably Y). I'll use it in the back to secure the stern. The nylon webbing has a loop sewn in the end, the user simply loops the other end through both the tow-eye and the sewn loop and cinches it down. Since the entire webbing strap needs to be threaded back out upon dis-assembly, I decided to purchase some stainless-steel snap rings, like carabiners but used for commercial halibut fishing, to clip the loop end of the webbing to the tow-eyes.
Be very careful not to tighten the bow and stern lines too much! A little bounce is not a bad thing! The stern line counteracts the bouncy forces on the bowline, and vice-versa, which really minimizes movement even when the lines are only just snug.
Since I won't be doing this a lot, I'll remove the tow-eyes and pop the plastic covers back in place for most of my driving.

My brother-in-law tells a range-anxious tale of car-topping a Christmas tree on his Model S, so I was very concerned about reduced range with all this stuff on top of our car. I had been driving around town without charging for a little while to gauge baseline efficiency without the racks and kayak. I got the car in October, so haven't put many summer-type miles on it. (I was skiing last week, it's just starting to be spring here now!) I drove 88 miles and had an efficiency of 228 Wh/mi. I loaded up, adjusted, blah blah blah, and drove 24 miles over the same roads I'd put the 88 miles on. Efficiency with the kayak on top on this quick, uncontrolled experiment (weather was *pretty* similar throughout) was 264 Wh/mi. Speeds not much over 50 mph... I was very pleased. Although my wife looks somewhat uncertain about this whole experiment in one of the pictures, we both agreed that the 200 mile trip with this arrangement seems highly doable. We'll definitely be flagging the stern, because it overhangs 5'4" from the rear of the car. The front overhang is less than 3'.

Hope this helps you and anyone else trying to push the limits...
 

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I am happy to see you getting this figured out. Our delivery keeps getting pushed out, but hopefully not for too much longer. I am hoping to be able to put my kayaks on top for local river trips and for trips to the west coast from Colorado without too much of a hit on range. My boat is not a skin on frame,
But it’s provided me with a lot of fun. I’ve been carrying it on top of my Tacoma which works great but burns a lot of fuel. I’d be interested to hear what your range is with the kayak on top.
View attachment 801985
See below for a long report- including a quick range test- about roof-topping a large double kayak on Model S
 
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I have just been experimenting with hauling a 24' double kayak on my 2021 Model S (in Alaska). I plan to drive it 200 miles and take a ferry...
I was concerned about two things: 1) stability 2) range impact. The longest leg between charging is ~120 miles, but I didn't want to arrive with only 10% charge...

As for stability, we used the racks from Tesla, which are made by Yakima, and the Yakima "BigCatch" saddles. The rack is rated for 165 lbs, and the saddles for 150lbs; our boat weighs about 90 pounds. The rack mounting points are only three feet apart (90 cm), so I carefully measured where the balance point of our boat was and set the saddles 18" (45 cm) fore and aft of center, I also centered them side-to-side on the rack, guessing this might improve aerodynamics.
I never was much for bow and stern lines attaching a kayak to a roof rack, they can put too much stress on the boat if you are not careful. I have car-topped this boat up and down the Alcan (to Alaska from Seattle) several times without ever using bow and stern lines, and never felt the least bit concerned. However, once we got the 24' beast on top of the Model S, it was clear that bow and stern lines would be needed to stabilize the boat. There is just too much front and rear overhang from the racks to hold it from bouncing up and down too much. The flex in the bars of the roof rack was also a little disconcerting, but hey, the rack is supposedly rated for 165 pounds, and flex is a great design characteristic: our skin-on-frame kayak relies on it over ocean swells (nylon over aluminum tubing lashed together in Alueut style)!

So I was in your dilemma, but maybe a bit more extreme version of it! How to secure bow and stern? The BigCatch saddles come with nylon webbing with a loop and a fastex ladder-slider buckle on one short strap for attachment to the boat (loop the buckle end though the loop and the carry handles on the kayak and cinch down with the buckle hanging), and a long one with only a loop and a short length of plastic sheathing-like clear polyethylene tubing- to protect the car paint for closing in the hood and trunk. The other end of the long webbing is secured through the fastex ladder-slider buckle hanging from the boat. We tried this, but the frunk webbing kept slipping out, the line got loose at 45 mph or so. The frunk wouldn't close properly with the webbing secured to the metal loop on the hood.
So, we installed the front tow-eye (reverse threads!) and didn't worry too much about those wires. If my interpretation is correct, they won't be carrying any current, unless you have jump-start cables attached to them! The liftback held the stern line securely, but still, it seemed an inelegant solution that needed to be re-secured every time the liftback was opened. I ordered another tow-eye by searching the web and finding one at an auto parts store in the San Fernando Valley (P/N 1077570-00-D, the same for Model 3, and refresh S, and probably Y). I'll use it in the back to secure the stern. The nylon webbing has a loop sewn in the end, the user simply loops the other end through both the tow-eye and the sewn loop and cinches it down. Since the entire webbing strap needs to be threaded back out upon dis-assembly, I decided to purchase some stainless-steel snap rings, like carabiners but used for commercial halibut fishing, to clip the loop end of the webbing to the tow-eyes.
Be very careful not to tighten the bow and stern lines too much! A little bounce is not a bad thing! The stern line counteracts the bouncy forces on the bowline, and vice-versa, which really minimizes movement even when the lines are only just snug.
Since I won't be doing this a lot, I'll remove the tow-eyes and pop the plastic covers back in place for most of my driving.

My brother-in-law tells a range-anxious tale of car-topping a Christmas tree on his Model S, so I was very concerned about reduced range with all this stuff on top of our car. I had been driving around town without charging for a little while to gauge baseline efficiency without the racks and kayak. I got the car in October, so haven't put many summer-type miles on it. (I was skiing last week, it's just starting to be spring here now!) I drove 88 miles and had an efficiency of 228 Wh/mi. I loaded up, adjusted, blah blah blah, and drove 24 miles over the same roads I'd put the 88 miles on. Efficiency with the kayak on top on this quick, uncontrolled experiment (weather was *pretty* similar throughout) was 264 Wh/mi. Speeds not much over 50 mph... I was very pleased. Although my wife looks somewhat uncertain about this whole experiment in one of the pictures, we both agreed that the 200 mile trip with this arrangement seems highly doable. We'll definitely be flagging the stern, because it overhangs 5'4" from the rear of the car. The front overhang is less than 3'.

Hope this helps you and anyone else trying to push the limits...
I have just been experimenting with hauling a 24' double kayak on my 2021 Model S (in Alaska). I plan to drive it 200 miles and take a ferry...
I was concerned about two things: 1) stability 2) range impact. The longest leg between charging is ~120 miles, but I didn't want to arrive with only 10% charge...

As for stability, we used the racks from Tesla, which are made by Yakima, and the Yakima "BigCatch" saddles. The rack is rated for 165 lbs, and the saddles for 150lbs; our boat weighs about 90 pounds. The rack mounting points are only three feet apart (90 cm), so I carefully measured where the balance point of our boat was and set the saddles 18" (45 cm) fore and aft of center, I also centered them side-to-side on the rack, guessing this might improve aerodynamics.
I never was much for bow and stern lines attaching a kayak to a roof rack, they can put too much stress on the boat if you are not careful. I have car-topped this boat up and down the Alcan (to Alaska from Seattle) several times without ever using bow and stern lines, and never felt the least bit concerned. However, once we got the 24' beast on top of the Model S, it was clear that bow and stern lines would be needed to stabilize the boat. There is just too much front and rear overhang from the racks to hold it from bouncing up and down too much. The flex in the bars of the roof rack was also a little disconcerting, but hey, the rack is supposedly rated for 165 pounds, and flex is a great design characteristic: our skin-on-frame kayak relies on it over ocean swells (nylon over aluminum tubing lashed together in Alueut style)!

So I was in your dilemma, but maybe a bit more extreme version of it! How to secure bow and stern? The BigCatch saddles come with nylon webbing with a loop and a fastex ladder-slider buckle on one short strap for attachment to the boat (loop the buckle end though the loop and the carry handles on the kayak and cinch down with the buckle hanging), and a long one with only a loop and a short length of plastic sheathing-like clear polyethylene tubing- to protect the car paint for closing in the hood and trunk. The other end of the long webbing is secured through the fastex ladder-slider buckle hanging from the boat. We tried this, but the frunk webbing kept slipping out, the line got loose at 45 mph or so. The frunk wouldn't close properly with the webbing secured to the metal loop on the hood.
So, we installed the front tow-eye (reverse threads!) and didn't worry too much about those wires. If my interpretation is correct, they won't be carrying any current, unless you have jump-start cables attached to them! The liftback held the stern line securely, but still, it seemed an inelegant solution that needed to be re-secured every time the liftback was opened. I ordered another tow-eye by searching the web and finding one at an auto parts store in the San Fernando Valley (P/N 1077570-00-D, the same for Model 3, and refresh S, and probably Y). I'll use it in the back to secure the stern. The nylon webbing has a loop sewn in the end, the user simply loops the other end through both the tow-eye and the sewn loop and cinches it down. Since the entire webbing strap needs to be threaded back out upon dis-assembly, I decided to purchase some stainless-steel snap rings, like carabiners but used for commercial halibut fishing, to clip the loop end of the webbing to the tow-eyes.
Be very careful not to tighten the bow and stern lines too much! A little bounce is not a bad thing! The stern line counteracts the bouncy forces on the bowline, and vice-versa, which really minimizes movement even when the lines are only just snug.
Since I won't be doing this a lot, I'll remove the tow-eyes and pop the plastic covers back in place for most of my driving.

My brother-in-law tells a range-anxious tale of car-topping a Christmas tree on his Model S, so I was very concerned about reduced range with all this stuff on top of our car. I had been driving around town without charging for a little while to gauge baseline efficiency without the racks and kayak. I got the car in October, so haven't put many summer-type miles on it. (I was skiing last week, it's just starting to be spring here now!) I drove 88 miles and had an efficiency of 228 Wh/mi. I loaded up, adjusted, blah blah blah, and drove 24 miles over the same roads I'd put the 88 miles on. Efficiency with the kayak on top on this quick, uncontrolled experiment (weather was *pretty* similar throughout) was 264 Wh/mi. Speeds not much over 50 mph... I was very pleased. Although my wife looks somewhat uncertain about this whole experiment in one of the pictures, we both agreed that the 200 mile trip with this arrangement seems highly doable. We'll definitely be flagging the stern, because it overhangs 5'4" from the rear of the car. The front overhang is less than 3'.

Hope this helps you and anyone else trying to push the limits...
Looks like a great Tandem. Thanks for writing up all your knowledge gained so far. We are scheduled to take delivery of our Y next Thursday, so I should be able to experiment soon.
 
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