How come fore & aft seats are sized differently?

[Howie]

Just idle curiosity, but I'm wondering how come the fore & aft seats on canoes are sized differently? I'm not talking about the left to right distance - clearly the front seats can be much wider than the rear seats because the latter are located at the narrower portion of the canoe. I'm referring to the seat's other dimension - their 'depth' so to speak. This dimension is formed by the two 'spacer' parts that get doweled to the parts that span the inwales. From what I've seen the 'spacers' for front seats are about 6 3/4" long and 7 3/8" long for the rear. Why the difference? Why stock two different parts? Wouldn't it have been more practical to make the seats the same depths so they could share the same 'spacer' part? Or is it that the rear seats are typically used by men - who have bigger butts?

 

[MackyM]

Maybe so short guys, like me, can see where we are going from the backseat??? Just a guess,Macky

 

[Howie]

Not the same thing - you're talking about seat height! I'm talking about how deep the seat is. But you're right - the rear seats are indeed typically higher than the front. No doubt it gives the rear guy a better view of the water ahead, but perhaps it also has benefits for power paddling. Me - I prefer to look at the lady in front of me than most anything else - so seat height isn't a concern. Although lower center of gravity is always a good thing in a canoe.

 

[Paul Scheuer]

I haven't been here for long time. I'm seeing a lot of good stuff, I've got a lot of reading to do over the holidays. This is a test of whether my log-in is still working.

The seat-size question is just the sort of thing that will stick in my head like a bad commercial jingle, if I don't make a comment.

Here's my guess - The bow seat, being wider athwartship and narrower fore and aft than the stern seat was done so that both have the same seating area within the seat frame. The standardization of the material may be that they both use the same quantity of cane.

 

[Howard Caplan]

I've wondered about this myself. The most satisfactory thought I've come up with is that back in the day the sport sat on the floor in the bow while the guide paddled from a seat in the stern.
Don't know the actual reason but this one keeps me working and not pondering.