WPSCR may be possible next year.
We’ll see. Money and time have been tight this year.
Saddle is not a new idea
– Last Updated: Sep-16-10 3:25 PM EST –
Years ago a fellow by the name of Pat Moore was very involved in FreeStyle. He designed and built several boats and paddles. I've never met him but according to friends who did, he was quite the technical paddler.
He was a proponent of saddles for FS. The Pat Moore Reverie, Reverie II and perhaps other boats came equipped that way. It's true that the paddler is pretty much locked in place but not much more so than while sitting. If one can't kneel in the "conventional" manner from a seat or thwart, a saddle is a viable option.
Marc Ornstein
Dogpaddle Canoe Works
Custom Canoe Paddles and Woodstrip Canoes
Saddles and heel
As you cant move your legs around using a saddle and getting heel on the boat is quite a different experience…Your feet need not be locked in though.
I tried a Reverie with a saddle at La Lou back in something like ancient history and for me the saddle was so contrary to the way I like to move around…
But different strokes for different folks. Its been ages since I have seen a Pat Moore saddle.
The chief difference between sitting and using a saddle is you do gain from the stability of having your knees one in each chine.
But a think on it point. Kayakers do exactly the same thing without pitching the bow and stern. Ergo if you can be locked in somehow with several contact points you ought to be able to get heel.
Some of us still use saddles 
My solo freestyle is kneeling from the factory-fitted seat… but to accomodate our 5 year old and pup, I usually reverse the hull and fit a saddle under each thwart: works nicely on our wee flashfire.
Off the seat, I’d always move both knees to one chine to heel the hull. When on the saddle, I find I’m just heavy enough to get the hull heeled to the rails by going up on the one knee, but have the option of keeping my butt on the saddle and using the off-side knee to lift the off-side rail.
In strong winds / big waves… I heel further (and with greater security) from sat in the saddle than I do from the seat!!!
Actually Pat Moore
advocated pedestals, not saddles. There are some differences between the two.
Pagayeur
Not all of us are as old as you!
quite…never got that tasty morsel of canoeing history.
But you shore are looking good fer an ole FSer.
Pats Pedestals
Pat Moore’s pedestals arrived in the bottom of BlackHawk’s Proem and Conevant models. They were longitudinally adjustable for trim, running on tracks that were bonded into the hull bottom. The pedestals tightened in place with thumbscrews activating toggles.
I guess we can best say the mechanism was too complicated for the plastics utilized.
When Pat broke with Phil he designed two pedestals for the Reverie series. The simple one attached with 3M’s Dual lock, a very aggressive super hook and loop product, that was placed in the bottom of the hull in lengths allowing trim adjustment. The dual lock “tracks” also bonded with pile and wool pants and various forms of aquatic herbacious life before eventually the bonding adhesive filed. The top end pedestal allowed vertical seat adjustment and had a new version of the Blackhawk tracks.
The overall utility verse cost comparison and analysis of pedestals has been made by the marketplace.
o geez Charlie
you mentioned wool pants.
Dont think I have ever seen Pagayeur in wool pants!
There ya go… nm…Pag
Ya hang around long
enough, ya see just about everything at one time or another. The trick is trying to remember all of it.
Both pedestals and saddles were too restrictive to suit me.
Pag