kneeling thwarts

[TommyC1]

I got pinned in my river tripping boat, a Swift Osprey.
That had a bench seat, 9" off the bottom and thigh straps.
The hull was pinned on its side, bow upstream. It did not deform or press on my legs. The current on my chest forced me to lean back so that I could not extract my calves from under the seat. A hinged seat would not have helped in that circumstance.

Fortunately the hull was on a shelf and I could lift my head out of the water. So I had time to try several things. Fortunately again the current was not too strong and after a few false starts I was able to grab the gunnels and pull myself forward enough to get my legs out from under the seat.

Since then I don't care to be on a bench seat or kneeling thwart in anything over easy Cl II.

Your Milage May Vary.

[NickParker]

http://www.canoewithaview.co.uk/forum/s ... p?tid=3116

That page has a pretty nice looking releasable thwart.

To control sliding side to side you can add some foam padding for your butt, and add hip blocks. If you mount the blocks to slots the width is easily adjustable.

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/s ... directlink" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[acc]

Thanks Nick; pretty interesting. I will take a closer look at the mechanics re brass rod etc. As for sliding, I did not do anything fancy like in the other link re foam seat. The canoe came w/ narrower wooden thwarts about 3" maybe. Just wrapped some closed cell foam from a sleeping pad that covers better portion of thwart, fastening w/good tape. It provides some comfort for me boney butt & keeps me from sliding involuntarily. I will have to check out more of the canoewithaview web site. I did not know about it before this. Thanks again.

[woro90]

The only hinged seat that I currently use is in my C1. It's a bucket that needs only a limited amount of motion for safety, so it's basically loosely bolted in, sitting in a cradle that locates it. The design is not appropriate for an open boat. Both my OCs have the same bucket, rigidly mounted. There's more room in those boats: The seat is higher and egress isn't restricted as much as my small-cockpit C1.

How do you make your bucket seats? I found my feet too large to wear shoes in my C1, as I have always had a hard time getting the feet out around the pedestal seat. I can imagine the benefits of a hinged bucket seat, supported by a rigid foam backbone running the whole length of my boat - vertical strip of light EPS foam from stem to stern, with the midsection (where the stiffness of the hull is diminished by the cockpit opening and weight does not count as much) made of stiff XPS foam, maybe even glassed over and to the hull. Would this be possible? And if so, how do you make the seats?

[Bob P]

It helps if you've been developing things for twenty years. This is my third seat iteration.



I use clamped male and female molds to keep the weight to a minimum, but the seat could be laid up over one half. The finished seat that you see here uses an experimental Spheretex core. Usually, I just make the seat out of carbon and Kevlar, cored only on the flat top surface. I still support the center of the seat with a piece of Minicell that sits between it and the hull.

[hazardharry]

yup i just f@#$ my left leg and lower back playing in a wave hole with that knealing style web canoe seat in my WWboat http://youtu.be/4G2ZsXNjEHk" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. i crossed my legs as i was rolled under and over while trying to eject myself. now i can't even roll out of bed. well never agian. time for a saddle set up. i like the aluminum framed jig i saw in another post. time to fire up the welder.

[PatrickOC1]

yup i just f@#$ my left leg and lower back playing in a wave hole with that knealing style web canoe seat in my WWboat http://youtu.be/4G2ZsXNjEHk" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. i crossed my legs as i was rolled under and over while trying to eject myself. now i can't even roll out of bed. well never agian. time for a saddle set up. i like the aluminum framed jig i saw in another post. time to fire up the welder.

see if theres still a heap perception saddle for sale on here thatd fit nice in your boat harry.... or post pics post-weld so we can see what you came up with.

[hazardharry]

dude i'm tottally gympt out right now.