Outfitting a solo tandem for an adult and a child ....

[Daf]

for learning .... Which would be best, a Vertige or a Prodigy X?

I though one main saddle just back of it's normal position for a 130lb person, and one just ahead of normal for a 55 lb person. The front saddle could be olne of those north water adjustable ones that straps in on lash strips.

Cheers,
Daf

[yarnellboat]

Daf,

I'd strongly recommend making the stern/solo seat adjustable too. If you really want to solo it too, it's best to be able move that seat up and trim it right as a solo boat, and you can just take the front seat out.

Be prepared for some figurin' though! Feet will overlap with toe blocks and knee pads, and saddles and anchors will overlap, etc.

In my Vetige X that's set up this way, I have toe blocks in the stern position, and use foot braces for the bow/solo saddle. For thigh strap anchors, I used big, single d-rings, and carved out cavitities in the underside of the saddle where it would need to sit over the extra ring when in another position.

Good luck!

PY.

[sbroam]

I set up an ME with the same goal - however, I'm 220# and my passengers range from 30# to 110#. As PY/Yarnellboat (Paul?) pointed out, there is overlap - in the solo position the rear knee cups were in the way. I cut them low and even made them so I could flip them out of the way but still wasn't 100% comfortable in either position.

I put some new pix in my outfitting gallery here :

http://picasaweb.google.com/scott.broam/CanoeOutfitting

The way I secured the saddle worked fairly well, but had a little wiggle. The way I did the thigh straps and anchors was an experiment as well - again, not ideal, but workable. I think the issue was placement more than how I made them.

I have been able to roll the boat from both positions, however, I realized I will almost never paddle this boat solo. I glued the saddle down and set the knee cups up properly for paddling from the stern. I find I can manage it solo from that position fairly well when I need to. I don't have the same expectations of this boat that I do from a play boat so I can tolerate some slack.

What would I do if I did it all over again? I think I would borrow something from C-1 outfitting - I would put the knee cups/pads on a sheet of plastic attached to the saddle like a factory C-1 saddle. That would let me have one set of knee cups for the "main" seat and to move them when I switched from solo to tandem.

[dirk]

Daf,

I cannot help with boat selection, but I did recently outfit an old Dagger Caper (14') so I can start taking the kids. I made both saddles adjustable using daisy chains. I used long strips of foam for knee pads. I built the saddles myself and made one very short for small kids (mine are 3 and 5). I have yet to add thigh straps, but hope to do so soon. I doubt I'll ever try to roll this boat, so I might just go with Mohawk type straps to avoid anchors in the middle of the boat.

Here are some pictures:

http://picasaweb.google.com/earlyd123/Caper

The boat is hanging upside down from the garage ceiling, so the pictures are not great, but probably explain what I did.

Dirk