C-Forum

Thanks for the tips.

It is a bit hard to see in the pictures but the backrest is about an inch higher than the cocpit rim allready. I will se how the sprayskirt handles a higher backrest and descide then.

Nice pictures, easier to see what you mean then!

Now i am iff on a university excursion to China fore three weeks so no improvements until may..

When I last outfitted a c1, my backrest was higher by about 3-4 inches. the skirt has generally no issues unless it's a proper kayak skirt. neo is pretty stretchy. good luck.

I second locking those knees down. Don't want them lifting on you. A bigger vertical back rest will give you more control as well. Happy boating

I'll go out on a limb here and say.. unless you're falling out of the boat, DON'T raise the backrest. The higher it is, the harder it is to get out. If for some reason your fancy strap release doesn't work, or you're stuck under a tree, you probably want to be able to get out.

Knowingly building entrapment into your boat is dumb. You need to actively hold yourself in to some degree.

I'll second larry on this one. Also the angle might be more where you want to play. Get the back of you saddle straight from bottom up 90degree angle.

I had problem holding myself in setups where there is an angle like shown in your pictures, or when the bulkhead setup was too small for me...

Also the thighstraps you have are anchored pretty far upfront. That's OK I like it this way too; much easier to exit then if the low anchor is near your crotch. But then it becomes mandatory to add knee straps otherwise there you are going to move forward when paddling and this is going to make you loose in the boat. Actually this might solve your problem even without touching the backrest I think...

Let us know how it goes!

Larry Horne wrote:I'll go out on a limb here and say.. unless you're falling out of the boat, DON'T raise the backrest. The higher it is, the harder it is to get out. If for some reason your fancy strap release doesn't work, or you're stuck under a tree, you probably want to be able to get out.

Knowingly building entrapment into your boat is dumb. You need to actively hold yourself in to some degree.

As you well know I'm of the opposite opinion to you Larry, a boat that requires you to actively hold yourself in, is a boat that's going to see you get ripped out.

Being able to take a nasty beating is an important skill in whitewater paddling, because 90+% of the time you're safer in your boat than out, even when you're the wrong way up; If you don't stay in the boat by default, then you'll never be able to hold out for any length of time.

I find a better compromise is to engineer more than one point of release into my system; My snap shackle is the primary (and quick) release and is attached to my deck's handle, but the ratchets of my bindings can be released under load too. I'm confident that I can escape my boat if I need to yet I'm highly unlikely to come out if I don't want to (and have had a couple of beatings with 1min+ underwater which testify to that, both motivated by pride and literally hundreds of onlookers hoping for me to swim).

Sorry for not posting updates here. There has really been nothing to post...

The project has been on a standstill since May. I have had too many exams and then spending a month at the Worlds Scout Jamboree got the weeks flying.

In May I lost the boat down a river and we had to walk/drive 10km before we by pure luck found it again. When we found it the backrest was broken off but the rest was intact. I hope to have the backrest repaired/modified and making something to hold my knees down as well on Tuesday afternoon.

My biggest concern is the seat height and balance. I am now at 9” and I can barely stay in the boat for five minutes. It feels a lot tippier than when I had the seat at 7”. At least I am training my balance a lot. I got a couple of wilderness river trips this summer in my 15” canoe and noticed that my technique had improved so at least I am learning something from struggling with the Jefe.

Here is a picture to make the post a bit more interesting. The rapid is called Elvbrufossen. I am paddling my 15’ Ally canoe without any spray deck or airbags. A lot of fun!

no spray deck or air bags and no helmet and maybe no pfd.

cheajack wrote:no spray deck or air bags and no helmet and maybe no pfd.

Yeap, it does sounds like a lot of fun! Until large steaming pile of dog doo hits the fan big time...

7" sounds much more like a good seat height. Try to work around your outfit to make it more confortable but at 9" you might just feel too unstable to run significant rapids...

Just my .02$ worth!

marclamenace wrote:

cheajack wrote:no spray deck or air bags and no helmet and maybe no pfd.

Yeap, it does sounds like a lot of fun! Until large steaming pile of dog doo hits the fan big time...

7" sounds much more like a good seat height. Try to work around your outfit to make it more confortable but at 9" you might just feel too unstable to run significant rapids...

Just my .02$ worth!

I had a 6" saddle in my jefe which was comfortable but a little tippy, so I cut it to 3" which was unbearably painful; i built it back up until i reached a good compromise at 4.5" (113mm to be precise)

9" is a very high saddle in a C1 (doubly so in the Jefe which isn't exactly famed for primary stability), it's higher than some people would have in an OC1. If you do persist with it... you'll get very good.

Latest modifications:
Lowered seat to 7 inches.
Tilted the seat forward a lot.
Old PFD foam on top.
Added knee straps.

The kneestraps seem to work just fine. "Jumping" around in the workshop feels much more controlled now. I have only had about 15 min in the boat last wekend.

A friend om mine borrowed the boat for a test trip. He had no truble at all keeping his ballance in the boat! I do have quite good balance from a lot of telemark skiing ect. so that is not the problem

I started to think a bit about boat stability. My friend is 1,7m high. I am 1,9m. He weigs max70kg I weigh 90+ with gear. I looked at the Jefe specs and it states that paddeler weight is max 93kg. Does the boat get less stable when paddeler weight increases? Looking at pictures of other Jefe paddelers i thing i am quite a bit taller than them=heavier as well. Am I struggeligng against a boat that is definetely not made for me?

This weekend is a non paddeling weekend but i hope to have a afernoon trip in it next week testing it a bit more.

My impression is that , in C1, our center of gravity is definitely higher than it is in K1, so it is better to stay away from the top half of the weight range of a boat in order to keep the same amount of balance. This is certainly not a rule, but maybe a good suggestion.

Then again, the width of the Jefe is good at 69 cm/27", and the Grande is not wider (still 69cm), so the Grande probably won't be that much better for you.

But I have never done a K1-C1 conversion, so I don't know much.

Hope this helps,
Shep

Barskekarsten wrote:Latest modifications:
Lowered seat to 7 inches.
Tilted the seat forward a lot.
Old PFD foam on top.
Added knee straps.

The kneestraps seem to work just fine. "Jumping" around in the workshop feels much more controlled now. I have only had about 15 min in the boat last wekend.

A friend om mine borrowed the boat for a test trip. He had no truble at all keeping his ballance in the boat! I do have quite good balance from a lot of telemark skiing ect. so that is not the problem

I started to think a bit about boat stability. My friend is 1,7m high. I am 1,9m. He weigs max70kg I weigh 90+ with gear. I looked at the Jefe specs and it states that paddeler weight is max 93kg. Does the boat get less stable when paddeler weight increases? Looking at pictures of other Jefe paddelers i thing i am quite a bit taller than them=heavier as well. Am I struggeligng against a boat that is definetely not made for me?

This weekend is a non paddeling weekend but i hope to have a afernoon trip in it next week testing it a bit more.

I'm a little taller than you, and weighed 87 kg when I had the Jefe; I found it rather twitchy, if not downright unstable until i lowered the saddle quite a lot.

Having broken, replaced, retrieved and welded it, I lent it to a girl* in my uni canoe club, who found it to be more than stable enough with the original saddle in it despite being totally new to canoing.

*(165cm, 50ish kg)

In any case the Jefe makes an excellent C1 if you can get comfy with the stability; so much so that I'm considering getting another (my Gus, though trusty, is wearing thin in the bow and I'd rather get another main boat than break it).

Jefe revisited
I admit it. During the autumn I kind of gave up the Jefe. I started thinking about getting another boat and selling the Jefe. After a bit of thinking I got a lot of help from a fellow c-boater and hopefully the outcome will be a brilliant boat soon.

Lately there has been a change in leaders at the student workshop at the university. I am a kind of veteran there and I needed to spend more time there so help the new gays out. With no other projects to work on when I needed to be there anyways I started again on the Jefe.

My theory is that the problem is not the seat but the padding in the bottom of the boat. I am able to sit on the seat outside the boat on my sleeping mat for about an hour with no problems. When inside the boat I manage around 15min maximum.

I should let the pictures speak for themselves:

I ripped out all the old padding and glued on two layers of old sleeping mat to the bottom. As a side effect my knees now spread one inch further apart. I also moved the knee straps 3inches further up my thighs.
Tonight it is a rolling session in the pool and I will come back with a report then. I still need to work on my roll and prepare myself for a bigger OC1!

More pictures. Feel free to commet if you see somthing i can do betther.