Has anyone lowered their seat height? In talking to Karel Jr. at the Oceanside clinic, he said his is dug out to only a 1/4 inch of foam on the bottom! Benefits? lower CG? Would that in turn shorten your paddle length used?
Submitted by herman on Sun, 01/04/2009 - 4:23pm
He also talked about throwing his hips around to aid in turns etc. It seems to me digging deeper and sitting with more hip support makes that effort easier.
Center of gravity (balance) wouldn't be Karels problem. If you feel that you're not having enough support for hip-throwing, go on digging. I'm not sure how significant the lowering of CG would be, but there is always a fresh blank to be messed with.
Karel paddles a production line canoe which isn't tailored to him and covers a broad band of body types. I'm sure he has his Zephyr seat in his suitcase when he travels. It seems to me that all manufacturers have gone to large foam block seats not only for comfort but to make up for the too expensive customization at this point. The big chunk of foam leaves a lot more room for individual adjustments. Great flotation device as well.
#1 Sun, 01/04/2009 - 4:56pm
I bought a 2nd hand Zephyr from a guy who was a good 3 to 4 inches taller than me. The seat was fine but I knoew I wanted one cut much closer. I called Jr and ordered a seat a good 4 inches closer and 1.5 inches lower. I also shortened my iakos 3.5 inches. Im told by lowering the set you lower your center of gravity making you more stable. What you can give up is the ability to get up over your paddle when driving down. So far ive only gotten faster and have no shoulder trouble. Im a really narrow guy but in general, on an OC boat, you are putting yourself farther down between the high sides on the canoe so you can give your hips more control. I let a much taller paddler try my canoe a good 6 months and hundreds of miles later so I pulled out the old seat for him. we switched canoes for a bit so I was back on my old seat. After about 5 minutes I couldnt stand it. I had to get off. For whatever reason the seat position put so much strain on my lower back I couldnt keep paddling. I would try the seat and your current paddle before cutting your paddle. Make one change at a time. Its easier to pinpoint what does what that way.
Hope this helps.
#2 Sun, 01/04/2009 - 5:00pm
If you end up cutting off too much for height, you can always buy some similar density foam, camping mat foam is cheap. You could probably get some in the states at an REI.
I dug out my Zephy seat for contour and found that the side walls bit in a little as I was too deep. I raise only the back half of the seat with about 1 inch of camping foam so that the whole seat tilted my pelvis forward.
It reduced pressure on my low back and fixed the sidewall edge bite. I spent about 8 bucks on a 6 foot roll of foam.
#3 Mon, 01/05/2009 - 8:52pm