Considering buying a Civic to carry my white water kayaks, but I

 

The car is only rated to carry a load of 400 lbs including passengers and cargo.

 

My guess is that you will not be so keen to enjoy the twisty mountain roads at 75 mph WITH A COUPLE OF FRIGGIN KAYAKS ATTACHED TO YOUR ROOF. Even with only a bike on my roof the drag and the higher center of gravity noticably impact the handling of my CRX.

As to the hard top, it's just a piece of aluminum latched to fasteners that are not designed to take much load. You would be an idiot to carry kayaks with it, IMO.

 

But then one guy towed a boat...

 

Towing the boat is fine. He wasn't trying to tow it down the freeway, just along a short resdiential neighborhood street.

 

yeah...driving through the twisties with a couple of boats attached to your roof doesn't sound too promising

 

The latches and strikers suck to begin with, I don't think they could take the extra stress of the weight. But maybe they could?

Perhaps if you could brace the front of the boats on the windshield frame instead of the lip of the hardtop?

 

NO! I haven't tried it, but I have owned both a hardtop on the S as well as a thule rack on an accord. I really don't think you'd want to have the rack on the hardtop, which is made of thin aluminum.

 

I would think the screws would pull out of the aluminum at HWY speeds, or bend the top.

 

If it were me, I'd scratch the hard top idea, put down the soft top and ask the passenger to hold the kayaks while I drove the Dragon in an as spirited manner as possible.

I have my hard top on now fending off a blizzard.