Fastening sidekick bar

I saw some pics of an alternative fastener to blind fasten the crossbar but can't find now. Any help as I'm sure the wellnuts will come out soon?

On my Revo, I used large stainless steel fender washers bent to accommodate the internal curve of the gunwale, along with nylock nuts. I don't trust wellnuts in a cyclic loading application... and at least on the Revo, there is no need for blind fasteners.

(I also took the advice of someone who posted earlier and extended the tube with PVC pipe in the middle, getting the adjustment buttons outboard where I can reach them - mounting is just forward of the aft hatch to allow clear paddle strokes. The very slight slop is shimmed with teflon tape, and the whole affair wrapped with self-vulcanizing "Rescue Tape." Works great!)

Cheers,
Steve

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2017 Tandem Island; projects described at microship.com

As I thought, the wellnuts have popped out, been replaced, and popped out again. If I had read about changing location of crossbar aft I probably would have. As it stands now I have four holes too far forward to reach w/nuts and bolts so have secured with zinc toggle bolts. Not the best set up but they do hold well (for the time being). Hobie should have come up with a better fastening system and at least offered suggestions for location of crossbar. Wellnuts are a cheap and easy but no good for this application. The sidekicks are very cool but Hobie can do better than this.

I had a similar problem with well nut's on a Revo. So I could reach the location of the exsisting wellnut holes, I made my backing plate by drilling & tapping a long peice of alunimum bar stock so I could align it with the holes by grabbing the end of the rod while reaching through the rear hatch.