Thule Water Slide Kayak Carrier Accessory Mat

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The Thule 854 Water Slide Mat is an ingeniously simple way to protect your vehicle’s finish when you’re loading and unloading a boat from a canoe rack or kayak rack. The Thule 854 Water Slide Mat has a non-skid undersurface and two bar straps that hold the mat in place while the smooth top surface allows your canoe or kayak to slide without apparent effort onto a car rooftop canoe rack or kayak rack. When you’re finished, the Thule Water Slide quickly rolls and stows away

The Thule 854 Water Slide Kayak Carrier Accessory Mat is a simple, yet essential accessory to any kayak roof mount carrier. Designed to cover the exterior vehicle panels and/or windows directly beneath the rear saddle of your kayak roof mount carrier, this accessory mat both protects versus scrapes and scratches and allows you to safely rest kayaks to be loaded versus vehicles, using them as leverage as you push your boat onto it is saddles. Additional features include: a nonskid underside, two bar straps to hold the mat in place while loading and unloading, and easy roll up storage.

Thule 854 Water Slide Kayak Carrier Accessory Mat showing universal straps

Protection from scrapes and scratches for the duration of kayak loading.
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Most helpful customer reviews

24 of 26 people found the following review helpful.
Loading my 12 foot Kayak became easy
By Dr. Wilfredo M. Viray
I have a Toyota Sienna Minivan with a Factory roof rack. The roof rack far enough away from the rear of the van that when I stand up the kayak on the back of the van and lean it at a 45 degree angle, the Kayak is a good 3 feet away from the rack. The only way to load my Kayak on to the roof rack is if I were to slide the kayak on the rear roof edge of the car and use that as a fulcrum.

The problem with sliding a 50 pound 12 foot long Kayak on the edge of the roof is that it will destroy the paint. So you will need to cover the paint with something so that there is not contact with the Car roof and the Kayak. It has to have a low coefficient of friction so that it will not scratch the underside of the kayak. It also must be able to stay in place as you slide the kayak. So the top part must be super smooth for the bottom of the kayak, and the underside must be extremely grippy that it will not slide off the roof, with the kayak. I tried the following:

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful.
So much help for so little money…
By Honest John
As the other reviewers say, the Thule Waterslide really does work much better than a towel or rug, and it costs no more. It’s a good size and well made with cushioning to protect your car. Your kayak easily slides on it and the velcro straps make it quick to attach with a sure grip. Unlike other Thule and Yakima rack products, the Waterslide is also fairly priced for what it is. It’s an essential part of my system to raise and gently lower my Delta 12-10 kayak onto my Volvo XC70 roof using the Thule Roll Model roller with the glide and set saddles.

Because the Waterslide is so slippery, your boat can unexpectedly slide off the back of your car at the wrong time in the wrong direction when you can’t catch it. One drop of my boat on the ramp tarmac taught me that lesson. So I now use my bow line rolled over the front roof rack as a guide and a brace to hold my kayak in place while raising and lowering it. I hold the line in my right hand to steady the bow, and then gently pull or slowly release the line to prevent the boat from sliding too quickly off the car. I keep my left hand on the boat hull to guide and support its weight. From my experience, I also highly recommend the Stowaway Kayak Cart for $59 at LLBean to complete a sensible loading system that can be used by one person. This well-built cart easily attaches to the stern of my kayak to support much of its weight during loading, unloading, and rolling my boat to the ramp. I’m a guy aged 62 with tendonitis who isn’t planning to get any stronger at lifting boats, but I have used some extra thought to devise an affordable and portable loading/moving system that works for me…

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful.
Protects the paint!
By DK
I have a 13 foot long Necky Manitou that I carry on the top of my van with a Thule Glide and Set. This handy little device allows me to load a kayak myself without scratching the paint. I couldn’t load by myself without this product. My only complaint is that in even relatively slow breezes the whole thing can catch the wind and stop protecting the van. I now clip my jumper cables to the bottom of the mat in order to prevent it from flipping up in a breeze.