My wife and I have two 9.5 ft kayaks. Use to use my Nissan Titan to lug them around.
We are thinking about getting the Thule kayak mounts for the Countryman.
We are also debating on using her car as the car to hold the kayaks.
She has a 2012 FX35, which is a bit larger.

Has anyone loaded kayaks on the roof of the Countryman and how does the oem roof rack fair?


On a side note, have been visiting family in Europe, and have seen a ton of Mini Countryman in France and Italy. These things are everywhere over here.
Have not seen one Paceman. Lots of Clubman too.

 

Not really answering your question but I just got two 12ft oru kayaks so that I would't have to worry about roof racks and such

 

I haven't put them on our countryman, but I did have the roof racks for the R56. In general use it was fine, but we road tripped and got caught in a wind storm and it was too much for the J racks and one bent. I doubt this would have been an issue on a car with them spaced farther apart. We have 12 and 13' yaks so your smaller ones may be fine.

 

My wife had convertibles before her CM so we hitched up for the trailer we already had, eliminates lifting above waist high and during the season we leave the yaks right on the trailer in my half of the garage and there is still room for my R50. We can hook up and be gone in 10 minutes.