A follow-up to my earlier post.
It seems that I didn't have my J-Cradles correctly mounted on the Thule bars, hence my marking my own boat with the edges. Once I got contacted by Oak Orchard I re-aligned the cradle and it worked just great.
However, in the time it took me to get my answer back from Oak Orchard, I got replacement bolts for my old style Malone J cradles and got them working.
Hence I am selling my Oak Orchard J cradles as there are none on the market that can match the "old" style Malone J cradles for padding and ease of use.
Changing my rating to 9 as the 10 is reserved for the old Malone's.
I purchased these Deluxe J-Cradles to fit my Thule bars, as I just bought a new Impex Outer Island and didn't have faith in the Thule J-Cradles regarding enough padding to protect my boat.
The Orchard J's arrived and noted that they were very heavy but also looked to be padded with soft rubber. Also noted that the rubber stopped short of running the full width of the cradle, stopping short of the plastic edges of the cradle.
I finally got to use them on my new boat and was disturbed to find that they left black marks on the hull of my new boat; and maybe due to the 2 hour trip, also slightly indented my fiberglass hull!!
The rubber padding compressed completely down to the level of the hard plastic-covered metal edges of the J and that is what made dents in my boat hull.
I have since scrubbed out the black marks (no small effort) and noticed when I waxed the hull that the indentations, however slight, are still there. I contacted Oak Orchard via email 5 days ago and still have not received a response to my questions/concerns.
In the meantime, I have read the previous post regarding adding 1/2" of minicell foam to the bottom of the "J" to keep the hull off the hard edges. So much for the "deluxe" padding to protect my new boat!
It seems as though more care should have been put into the design and testing of this product before selling it. The cradle themselves seem sound, but don't forget to add the extra padding!