canoe seat placement

[reinbilt]

Dear Forum

I'm ready to start trimming out the interior of a Ted Moores 15 ft. Hiawatha canoe. Proper seat placement has me baffled. This canoe will be paddled by a wide variety of different sized adults. What distance from the center mold station should the bow and stern seats be located?
Thanks for any help you might offer

[Bruce Hooke]

Do the plans not say or are you thinking of diverging from the plans? If so why?

[Steve Lansdowne]

I suggest you post this on the Bear Mountain web site's forum.

[Pernicious Atavist]

i had a 16' canoe built on an original e.m. white strongback while i was in maine. i asked the same question as you. the builder, an old mainer, told me the rear seat was as far back as possible while leaving enough width for the average butt. he steered me away fom installing a front seat, calling it a "drowner," as the front occupant often tucks his legs under the seat and, in the event of a roll, is trapped. he uses folding canoe seats up front, and they have worked well in the ten years i've used this boat. just a thought for you.

[Ian McColgin]

The normal caone has three thwarts, one dead amidships and the other two half way from there to bow and stern.

The rear seat is, as mentioned above, as far back as practical, which is normally about 2' abaft the rear thwart, give or take. The rear seat is normally mounted a little higher than the foreward seat will mount, same height as the gunnel.

The foreward seat is just ahead of the foreward thwart, and the cross memebers for it's support come in under the gunnel. This plus the boat's shere will put the forward seat lower than the aft seat, giving more pleasant visibility from the stern.

The seats put your weight up high and a boat with only two paddlers is less stabile. When paddeling alone, you will kneel facing the stern with your back against the foreward thwart and baddle from there. Centers the weight nicely.

But a canoe well loaded for a couple of weeks on the Allagash will be quite stabile with the canoists comfortably in their seats, and this use is what the seats are really meant for.

If the boat is light or if you really want to put the power to her, each paddler should kneel just infront of his or her seat, back braced on the seat, and stroke hard for god's sweet mercy.

The reason for capsize drills is to learn the way out, even if you have curled your legs under the seat.

G'luck

[Doug Canada]

Build a sliding bow seat. http://www.greenval.com/FAQbowsliderseat.html

All the best,
Doug

[FG]

I bet your building from Canoecraft offsets so you have no plans. I built a modified bobs special and am starting a hiawatha from the offsets. For my bobs, I sat on makeshift seats on the first few launchings until I decided where to place the seats for both height and distances from center. With only 1 thwart, you have a wide variety of placements available. The sliding seat idea makes sense if you will have a wide variety of paddlers. Your other option is to set the seats for normal paddlers and ballast to adjust for occupants that vary much from "standard". Be sure when you install the sliding seat so you are able to solo the boat by facing toward the stern from the front seat.

[DavidF]

Don't build in a seat. I took the seats out of my English canoe to refinish the interior and I never put them back. Instead I built a box that was shaped to accomodate the hull shape. This way I could attach a back and move the seat to any place in the canoe to adapt to different paddling situations. The passenger sits on a couple of floating cushions, which is fine since I mostly paddle alone and can use the space to stow gear for camping.

[dld]

try this

Seat placement in a tandem canoe by KenE from the Paddling.net forums:

“Rather than sliding seats or gear placement to put the boat in trim, you can adjust for paddlers' weight differences by permanent seat placement (as long as you have the same paddlers paddling in the same position all the time). Many companies will do custom seat placement. Wenonah, for instance, builds all its canoes to order (yeah, you may buy one from the dealer "off the shelf" but the dealer has ordered it that way).

To adjust the seat placement to compensate for weight differences of the paddlers use this formula: The weight of the bow paddler times the distance from the front edge of the bow seat to the center point of the canoe is equal to the weight of the stern paddler times the distance from the front edge of the stern seat to the center of the canoe (BxD=SxD) [Use the FRONT edge of the seats because that is where the paddler's weight is centered]. This has the same effect as when big brother and little sister want to teeter-totter together. Big brother scoots way up (closer to the center point) while sister scoots way back (farther from the center point).

Example: Two people are canoe partners. One always paddles bow, the other stern. The bow paddler weighs 120#. The stern paddler weighs 170#. They have a new 16' tandem and they want to place the seats so that it is trim. Work with bow paddler to find the optimum place for his/her seat. Let’s say it is 66" from the front edge of the seat to the center of the canoe. We now can work the formula to figure out placement of the stern seat. 120# x 66" = 170# x D", or 7920 = 170 x D, or 7920/170 = D, or 46.6". The front edge of the stern seat should be 46.6" from the center of the canoe.

Reverse their positions and you get: 170# x 66" = 120# x D", 11,220 = 120 x D, 11,220/120 = D, 93.5". The front edge of the stern seat should be 93.5" from the center of the canoe. Remember, always use the FRONT edge of the seats when measuring.”