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adjusting your seating for comfortable sea kayaking
Pulling from more than 20 years of paddling and boat design experience, Nigel Foster shares a variety of tips and technical skills that will make your sea kayaking and touring trips easier and more enjoyable. In this issue, Nigel discusses how to adjust your seating for comfortable sea kayaking.
By Nigel Foster
When sea kayaking we must be prepared to sit in more or less the same position for some time. Attention to a few seating details before you set off can make a big difference in how comfortable you will be.
Foot Brace Position
First check your foot-brace position. start by straightening your knees and dropping your legs to the hull.Angle your feet upright with your toes pointing straight up, or as close to this position as you can achieve in your kayak. When you are in this position you should be in firm but not tight contact with your foot-braces.When you bring your heels toward you and press with the balls of your feet against the braces your knees should be able to contact your deck or your thigh or knee braces. if your foot-braces are too close you will likely experience lower back pain and/or discomfort in your calf and thigh muscles after an hour or two.
Leave room for your knees to drop
your knees should be free to drop from and to lift into contact with the deck. At the start of each forward stroke your torso should be fully rotated in one direction with your arm stretched forward for the catch. At this point the knee on your catch side should be raised and the knee on your offside dropped. through the stroke the leg on your catch side should be free to straighten at the same time as the knee on your off side bends up.
Back support
your back support should ideally only be used while resting. When you sit upright your back support should be just out of touch. When you paddle your torso rotation will make your back rub against a back support if it is too close, and if you rest against your back support you will limit your torso rotation and reduce the effectiveness of your paddle strokes.the higher up your back your support reaches the more it will affect your paddling, so if you need some support, try to keep it as low as possible.
Hip support
the sides of seat should be clear of your hips. When your torso rotates your hips should move forward and back an inch or two. leave enough space for them to do this without being locked by seat supports, and without friction. A finger width each side between hip and seat should be enough.
Edging control
edging control can be achieved in one of several ways. one way is to lift the knee on the high side of the kayak and drop the leg on the low side. you can drop the leg fully, or even press it down against the hull but you may
also simply disengage the knee but leave it in contact with the deck. Keeping the one knee, the higher one, engaged in contact with the deck is what offers your primary edging control.
Alternatively you can drop both knees, straightening both legs. this disengages both knees. it is easy to create a wobble when both knees are engaged, rapidly alternating the pressure between two knees. if you find yourself wobbling like this, drop one knee. it is not possible to wobble in this way when you only have contact with one knee, or have
contact with neither. racing kayakers, using tippy kayaks, tend to use no knee contact. sea kayakers often use one. How tightly you lock into your thigh braces depends on your kayak. loose contact offers the best solution for paddling distance without feeling cramped in the cockpit.
Experiment
experiment to discover which leg position will work best for you. you may often get advice biased toward one or another seating position but every kayaker is different, and different kayaks offer different options. it is not a case of one size fits all. Find out what works best for you by trying out all the options, then use the one that works best. Know that this will not be the same for every paddler. it is personal.
Your seat angle
the front if your seat may prevent you from dropping one leg if it is too high. Dropping the front edge of your seat can help you lower your offside leg to increase your arm reach for the start of a stroke. A seat that feels really comfortable in the store might have a raised front edge to support the thigh, but this can prevent you from straightening your leg when paddling.
A seat that tilts you forward will work better for paddling than a seat that throws you back. if your seat pushes you back against your back support you will lose much of your torso rotation and your rotation will be in the wrong plane.
For paddling you should rotate around a vertical line between the top of your head to your tail bone. A natural inclination is to lie back as in an armchair, but it is better if your seat makes you lean forward to counter this. Adding a foam pad along the back of the seat pan can achieve this of your seat is not adjustable.
Try this at home
A good way to see the effect of this is to sit upright on the floor with your legs straight and your feet against a wall.you will almost certainly feel as if your upper body wants to lie back. Now add a pad under the base of your spine.the effect is to tilt you forward,making it much easier to sit upright.this is the effect you need to achieve on your seat.
Summary
your seating position affects your ability to paddle with full power and efficiency. your ideal position helps you sit upright so your body rotates along a vertical line between the top of your head and your tail bone.your hips need to be clear of the sides of your seat.your legs should be able to straighten without discomfort from the front of your seat and without your feet squashing too tightly against the foot braces.your back should be just clear of the back support until you want to stop paddling and relax.
there is no one correct way to brace your legs inside your kayak when you edge. several ways work. Find the way that works best for you in your kayak and use that. if you change your kayak your preference may also change. Finally, your preferred way to position your legs for edging may change depending on what you are trying to do. Keep an open mind and experiment with the options to discover what works best. it is personal. everyone is different!
Technique
Nigel Foster’s
new book ‘‘encounters from a Kayak" was released in 2012 by Pequot Press. the 39 short stories gathered from his kayaking experiences around the world are divided into the categories; people, animals, places, and flotsam and jetsam.
to learn more about Nigel, go to www.nigelkayaks.com
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