Moving Bow Seat Back

[Norm Hein]

I was just looking at a different post and Craig Johnson brought up the point about not having a thwart behind the bow seat, having the seat hanging from the gunnel allows the canoe to spread. My wife and I had our first float together in our 17' OTCA this week. It is going to be the perfect canoe for us. The problem is that my wife is 6' tall and said there is not enough leg room in the bow for her. I'm trying to figure a way to move the seat back with minimal changes to the canoe. The easiest way as I see it is to take out the thwart and move the seat back to its position. This would be a gain of 5-1/2". So that move in it's self would require drilling another hole in the gunnel on each side to catch the front cross-member of the seat. Not too bad. but then I would have no stern thwart. I prefer my seat attached right to the gunnel but my wife does not. So It looks like I will have to drill two more holes (one each side) in the gunnel to re-attach the thwart. That's a lot of holes in the at small space. Any comments, thoughts or ideas on how to make a guys wife happy (easy fellas) and still have a sound canoe?



Here is my wife, Sherri, doing her perfected paddle stroke.

 

[mccloud]

It would certainly be possible to hang a seat from the open gunwales using cable ties - temporarily, of course, just until you get the position right. Or use a 'saddle seat' such as Tom Seavy makes. https://azlandtraditions.com/saddle-seat Can be moved forward, back as needed. Is your intent to build a new bow seat?

 

[Norm Hein]

Good idea about making something temporary to get the right position.Yes I will have to make a new seat to get a good fit.

 

[ppine]

Be careful with holes. They can create weakness. Fill any holes you are not using.
Tall women are the best.
A friend of mine is 6'4" that I played basketball with in high school over 50 years ago. I saw his wife recently. I asked her "how tall are you?" "Five 13" she replied.

 

[mmmalmberg]

If you move the seat to the thwart position, could the seat fulfill the job of the thwart? If you're building a new seat that would seem to make sense to me. Having no substantive canoe experience to draw from, just c.s.

 

[Norm Hein]

mmm I think you are somewhat right if the seat rail was bolted directly to the gunnel. If it hangs there is to much play. Mike (the forum stalker) sent me this idea. I think with the extra support this would work.

 

[Dave Osborn]

Norm,
If you do drill new holes, don’t just fill the old holes, plug them wit dowel and tite bond 3 or epoxy.
I’ve made seats wider in the past. No photos of it, but I made a step in the seat about half the thickness. Then stepped a piece half the thickness and epoxied them together. I used a part of a broken seat to make the pieces. Same wood and patina. You could hardly tell ther was an addition to each of the four ends.

 

[mmmalmberg]

THAT is how I would think all hanging seats should be done. The front seat on my OTCA 17 is direct-bolted on its rear cross-piece and hangs down by 1/2" or so at the front. I'm not sure if that's normal or not. My rear seat is direct bolted all four bolts.

 

[Dave Osborn]

Typically the bow seat hangs on dowels or spacers of some kind about 2 1/2” below the inwales. The stern seat is bolted right to the inwales on the rear and has 1” dowel spacers on the front of the seat.
I’ve seen very few that were different than that unless someone made a mod or in the case of a bow seat with a mast ring. Those are normally bolted tight under inwales

 

[Larry Meyer]

I recently picked up a 15 foot old town trapper. As I am a tad over 6 foot, paddling it solo sitting in the bow seat was very problematic. Seat location made for poor trim (too far back) and seat height put knees in my mouth. Needed to shift weight forward and get seat higher. So I made a detachable seat that fits over the fixed seat with arms that rest on top of the gunnel. Moved my ass about five inches forward for better trim and five inches higher to get my knees down out of the way.

I would suggest you make something like with seat surface extending from where the front edge of the fixed seat now is all the way back to where the thwart is. No mods to fixed seat, thwarts, or gunnels needed. Fixed seat would serve regular size paddlers. To avoid caning a new seat surface I just covered a thin piece of plywood with old yoga mat thin foam rubber.

 

[Dan Lindberg]

I once made something similar to what Larry is describing to move a rear seat forward.
In my case, I removed the original seat and made a new seat with members on the sides that moved the seat forward.

When I was done with the stretched seat, I put the original back in unchanged.

Dan

 

[Norm Hein]

The thwart definitely has to go. The area behind it is going to be needed for cheek overhang. I’m figuring I may go with a combination of the suggestions here. Use Mike’s bracket as picture previously and make me a new contoured seat like the one pictured but with the bends closer to the inwales so as not to be as noticeable from original.

 

[mmmalmberg]

Typically the bow seat hangs on dowels or spacers of some kind about 2 1/2” below the inwales. The stern seat is bolted right to the inwales on the rear and has 1” dowel spacers on the front of the seat.
I’ve seen very few that were different than that unless someone made a mod or in the case of a bow seat with a mast ring. Those are normally bolted tight under inwales

Good point, my OTCA was set up for sailing. And I probably confused the front and rear arrangement.

 

[Fitz]

The stern seat is bolted right to the inwales on the rear and has 1” dowel spacers on the front of the seat.

My rear seat is direct bolted all four bolts.

The spacers are typically at the rear of the stern seat to account for the sheer of the canoe and leveling the seat. The front of the stern seat is bolted to the gunwale.

Cheers,

Fitz

 

[Larry Meyer]

As a general thing I prefer the seats as high as possible, which boils down to bolted directly to the inwale – no spacers. Most canoes have about 12 inches of depth at the center, more at the stern. Not a lot of height to work with. I don’t see a strong case for low seats making for a lower center of gravity and therefore a more stable canoe. Other factors are more important for canoe stability.

Any seat height modifications that make the paddler more comfortable and less fatigued are for the good and contribute to efficiency and safety of paddling. Trying to paddle with your knees in the way is dangerous. When I got the OT trapper I quickly learned it was dangerous for me to paddle it with seats installed as they were. The guy I got it from did some fairly long Canadian wilderness trips in it and I don’t know how he managed, the seats were that low. At the end of eight hours my legs would be so cramped up you’d have to extract me from the canoe with a crane.

If you are concerned about maintaining the originality of the canoe, I think I recall Rollin Thurlow chiming it at one point that there was no builder’s rule about where to locate the seats. You gotta put them some place when you build them. If I’m paddling tandem, I like the stern seat as far back as possible; more room for gear and legs and my paddle stroke is more vertical – more parallel to the centerline. I’ve paddled bow seat in canoes whose seat was so far forward my nose was the leading front edge of the canoe – not agreeable. I’ve paddled bow seat in one of Fitz’s big canoes and it was fun because the bow seat was far enough back. My pry and draw strokes were effective in turning the canoe.

 

[mmmalmberg]

Question... the last time I canoed was when I was a kid, in my grampa's canoe on a lake in western PA. He told me if I was taking the canoe out alone to move to the thwart in front of the rear seat to handle winds more easily. We had a cushion and I'd lean my butt back against the thwart with my knees on the cushion. This seemed to work; just wondered if that's a standard solution for solo seating. Maybe just for the young?

 

[pklonowski]

That works well, as you're trimming the canoe (leveling it front to back) pretty well. A bit better is to kneel right behind the center thwart.

Any time you're in wind, if one end of the canoe is higher than the other, you're a weather vane. By getting the ends level, you'll have a much easier time getting the canoe to go the direction you want, rather than the direction the wind wants... This is why a true solo canoe has the seat mounted so close to center.

 

[Larry Meyer]

Handling a canoe in wind is a whole big subject on its own, but this post prompts me to clarify that when I’m soloing a 17 footer or a 15 footer I sit in the bow seat facing the stern for the best trim. If there’s a strong headwind, the best position is on shore with a beer, waiting for the wind to die off.

 

[mmmalmberg]

Handling a canoe in wind is a whole big subject on its own, but this post prompts me to clarify that when I’m soloing a 17 footer or a 15 footer I sit in the bow seat facing the stern for the best trim. If there’s a strong headwind, the best position is on shore with a beer, waiting for the wind to die off.

I was hang-gliding for a while and one of my favorite sayings relevant to that was "always better to be on the ground wishing you were in the air, than to be in the air wishing you were on the ground"