I have a Boreal Ellesmere and the old fiberglass seat wore two holes in the bottom. I found the old mini cell foam worn to nothing and a small amount of sand so it must not take much to wear thru.
I re-glassed the bottom and tried no seat at all, didn't work for me, I slid around too much and it was very uncomfortable, it also seemed to mess with control and killed my tail bone. I then tried a flat mini cell seat, damned uncomfortable. Next a Happy Bottom seat, better but still not the ticket so I opted for Boreal's comfort seat and never looked back except to my now empty wallet. It set me back over 200 bucks butt I am very happy with it.
I built a Pygmy many years ago and it came with a Thermorest seat and for me, it was a joke.
I'm thinking the Redfish seat would be a first time fix but you may want to get some opinions from those that have one. If you Velcro it rather than gluing in, you could remove to clean underneath.
Never mind since you like siting on the bottom. How about a sheet of black rubber glued down?
Cut a yoga mat to size . . . for economy, practicality and appearance - but especially comfort. We cut these 1/4" thick closed cell mats (wide choice of colors)with scissors to fit in the bottom of our boats, notched in the right places for the hip bracing boards. They also have 1/8" thickness. We put them under our thermarest seat pads, which are very comfortable, but the yoga padding material extends the comfort area.
A couple of points: I don’t think you have to worry about sand or grit damaging your hull from your butt rubbing it around.
Where my water shoes and NRS boundary shoe heels hit the hull below my foot braces in my QCC is worn smooth from many years and thousands of miles of paddling, but there is still no sign of worn kevlar fabric, and there is much more grit and foreign material around there than where my butt is.
2. We pad our seats in our racing canoes using the blue foam sleeping pads that you get at Wally World.
I think they are about 13 bucks. - Cut it to the size you want, and glue it down with contact cement. They are about 1/4 to 3’8 of an inch thick.
Hard to comment well on your seated position and how it works out without being there, but FYI it's not uncommon for the top of my pelvis to at the very top of the coaming, maybe even a smidge above, in boats where I get really good contact with my thighs. Usually the ones that fit that way are the easiest to roll and otherwise manuever on the water.
Only other comment is to agree with one above about a bit of cushioning re the nerve that runs from around your sit bones down the back of the thigh. In one of my boats, I've had to alter the seat angle and add foam to protect that or I get some wicked cramps over a long paddle. You might want to investigate gluing at least a thin layer of foam into the seat area for that reason. It'll also be less slick contact for your butt when it comes time to roll than a plastic film.
I'd suggest a sheet of 1/8" or 1/16" N1S neoprene with the fabric side up. Good abrasion resistance, not too slippery when wet, and a tiny bit of cushioning.
Designers compute in the key distances and angles for best performance. They can make it better for access by beveling, or scalloping deck edge. Or dropping the aft cockpit rim, back band, or deck for layback in rolling.
Mess with their ratios and you mess with the designed ability to stroke, control, and roll.
But if you like it better go for it.
Who's messing with ratios, or are you talking the OP? If my seat angle change, it was just to stop the forward edge from rising up and cutting into my thigh in a P&H boat. Had that correction recommended to me by a Team P&H guy in fact when I was talking about their seat and my occasional sciatica. (after rejecting the likelihood of a skinnier thigh)
It's a long stretch to believe that changed the dynamics of how the boat behaves in any negative way. It's an older boat that already isn't the best for layback rolls, and that boat came out of the shop with two positions available for the seat about an inch and a half apart front to back.
In regards to your question about buying an unstable kayak:
I told the salesman that I was interested in learning to roll. He told me that an unstable kayak like this would make it much easier to learn to roll since the first half of the roll would be much eaiser.
Now that I am an intermediate paddler, I no longer need this added instability to help me with the first part of the roll. I find I can do the first half of the roll without any problem. I just need to find something to help with the 2nd half.
If I want to progress further I thought I should remove this "crutch" that artifically helps me do that first half of the roll. I imagine really advanced paddlers have all kind of exotic manuvers to execute that first part of the roll. However, I have not seen any information specifically on this topic in my instruction books or videos. If you have any information on advanced techniques for initiating the roll I would enjoy hearing them.
About that coaming FYI, a coaming that comes out a little too low to make getting the skirt on easy isn’t a remarkable rarity. That seems to be something that happens with a variety of manyfacturers from time to time.
However, that could be a real pain if you start messing around in surf. You’ll want a skirt with a pretty decent hold as well as the ability to slap it on quickly. You may want to try to heat the coaming, carefully, and move the lip up just a bit. wilsoj2 (above) has done that on the Romany.
I paddled a 19" wide cedar strip kayak for a few years without a seat and it was just fine. I duplicated the hull of my SOF kayak into a cedar strip kayak and the strip kayak turned out to be less stable because of the higher center of gravity. With the SOF my center of gravity was almost 1" lower which made a big difference in the stability in this narrow of a kayak. What I found was that if I didn’t use any seat at all the kayak was much more stable and also if I had my legs laying flat on the hull, using a masik for my knee braces I gained even more stability. Hip pads helped a lot when paddling rough conditions. It’s amazing how little changes can make such a big difference when paddling a tippy kayak. I’ll post a link to some pictures of the cockpit in this strip kayak to give you an idea of what I did. Hope this helps.
I think your butt will tell you how much foam to add for long term comfort. I converted a whitewater c-1 to be a kayak, and I installed a foam backrest, a backband, and side bolsters to keep my hips located. I found that 1/4 inch minicell foam was adequate to pad the bottom of the boat. Because the composite hull layup was thin, I added two layers of 6 oz Kevlar to the inside of the boat, to spread the effect of running up on rocks with my butt resting on the boat bottom.
Another reason for a little foam on the bottom is warmth. The bottom of the boat can get real cold.
The instability of the kayak helps with the capsize.
Please note the smiley symbol “:)” at the end of the post. It was just a joke in response to the comment indicating that I must be really stupid to have purchased a kayak I thought was too unstable.
I mostly agree with biomechanics I can’t help but wonder about your situation. I’m guessing there may be physical limitations that exist pertaining to figuring out a roll, but I very well could be misinterpretting? In any case, laying on the back deck seems to help a lot of folks with the last half of the roll. (Really, with a life vest on, the first half is nearly done by the time you set up. I’ve always considered my basic roll and was taught it as a single fluid motion.) This is made more difficult obviously by sitting lower in the kayak. Setting up in general would be more difficult sitting lower under the coaming if flexibility is any sort of issue (again, I don’t know for sure that flexibility is an issue, just a thought?). I’m not sure a Force Series kayak would be considered unstable to an intermediate paddler, and I’m not sure a person can be considered intermediate without the by far-and-away most reliable and reassuring form of self rescue, the roll. Any other type of self rescue also seems to require greater strength, coordination, and flexibility. Please don’t take any of this as any sort of judgement. I don’t know you. You’re a fellow paddler and I’m glad you’re out there enjoying yourself regardless. I’m just trying to examine this the way I would if I were talking face-to-face to a friend. I think biomechanics makes a good point with a boat being designed and a seat being placed with certain handling characteristics along with intended weight loads in mind. If that’s not the right boat for you, find a different design if you can unless modifying that one is your only option, or you’ve tried, and failed, to find anything else that you like as well given the modifications. I also, based upon what little is here, get the impression that you consider that boat tippy, even considering yourself an intermediate. Then I’ll add my personal rolling experience. As a beginner, I had more confidence rolling a more stable boat. Now mind you, I didn’t have physical limitations that didn’t allow me to comfortably put my paddle above the water while upside down, or that required me to lay back on the deck to generate enough torque to roll the boat up, etc. There were a couple things. If I felt unstable in the boat (and as a beginner, it wasn’t automatic always having the leading paddle edge high with any consistency when needing an impromptu brace) then when I first came up from the roll, I felt even more unstable. If I came up too hard or not hard enough, I might not succeed with my stabilizing brace, and go right back over for a second try. Also, with a more stable boat, the secondary stability of the boat holds you up if you were a little soft, or keeps you from going back over if you were a little hard, even if you mess up with your stabilizing brace (more forgiving). In addition, it is easier to feel where you’re at in the progression of the roll, as you will feel yourself go over that secondary stability and know by feel where you’re at on the upright side of things. If you have problems generating the torque to get yourself upright at all, and it’s due to physical limitations vs just not getting the knack of it yet, I’d say that stability might get in the way, and you’ll probably have to figure out a sculling roll of some sort if you really want to roll. Of course there’s all kinds of factors here that I may not be aware of, but on the surface my initial instinct would be trading to a hull design that was designed with your size and weight and desired stability characteristics in mind. There is a lot to the handling characteristics of what’s considered a less stable hull, and ease of rolling doesn’t even factor in for me. It’s not really a case of trading stability for ease of rolling. In any case, this isn’t what you were asking about in your original post. Reading through everything, I just couldn’t help wondering about the whole process. I really do hope that whatever you do it’s a perfectly reasonable option for you and that you enjoy your time out on the water as much as possible. Please just ignore it if it isn’t helpful, as I’m certainly trying hard not to offend anyone.
I went back up in this thread, and from what I can see all that is going on is that mjamja is looking for a little more thigh room. If anyone has tried sitting in a Force 3 they'd get it - it's a tight fit for an average sized guy. If the OP'er said anywhere that they found the boat too tippy I can't find it.
This has turned into a funny thread though.
(And g2d also has a good point about needing some foam to protect against cold butt. I really feel that 30-odd degree water thru a boat unless I am paddling pretty hard, even in a drysuit.)
Oh, by the way, with the rolling… I would suggest working on your high brace. Once you are completely confident in your high brace, you have your second half. Do it a lot and find your limits. Let your body with life vest and paddle hit the water and significantly slow your downward momentum before putting any pressure on the paddle and initiating any hip flick. When your body hits the water, let your body from your hip to your shoulder on the upwards side curve upwards towards the surface. When you intiate your hip flick and put pressure on the paddle, simultaneously, your head, shoulders and the curve between your hip and shoulders will switch to the opposite side - towards the water. This allows your entire torso to aid in that hip flick, and also helps to make sure your head and shoulders are the last things you bring back up over the center of your boat. Again, make sure you stay relaxed and let your life-vested body and relaxed hold on your paddle hitting the water slow your momentum and extend that sideways curve from hip to shoulder on the upwards side of your body (towards the surface) as much as possible. Then boom, you bend that body and flick that hip and switch the angle of your shoulders and lay your head towards the downward shoulder all at once. This is easy to practice and envision just sitting in a chair.
If you can do this, you can then work on a balanced sculling brace, which will teach you how to scull your way to the surface. You don’t have to be able to do a sustained balanced brace. If you can scull your way to the surface, and you can perform a high brace after letting your body hit the water, you’ll be able to figure out the transition from one to the other, and you will be rolling. How well you can peform the hip flick (or high brace) part will determine how far you will have to be able to scull yourself up, and vice versa.