Reply to replys
ShadyClip; I’ll have her try some high seat SOT kayaks but believe the seat back straps would have to be removed. There goes any back support. She is wider than all the kayaks in the link except one with the same width dimensions. I suggested a canoe but she is a short person and canoes are tippy. Watching her try to paddle a canoe is a Youtube worthy event.
esstyle: Custom kayak I’m certain would be thousands more than she can afford.
magooch: According to her, not going to happen. Although she has lost 60 lbs, her hip dimensions she says will stay the same if not wider when she sits from sagging butt skin. Family genetics.
alpalmer: She would like to paddle solo. I have a tandem Wilderness Systems Palmlico and 3 other kayaks. All are a no-go. Looking into high seat fishing SOT’s.
Marshall: Brilliant!!! Never would have thought of that as I know nothing about those boards. Googled some photos of SUP boards with seats. If there is no wide load sit in kayaks on the market with a beeper which sounds when she paddles backwards, the SUP board idea just might work.
Diablo Kayaks
Diablo Kayaks are wide SOTs with low sides. The beach chair style seat would not work, but that can be removed and reworked. I am not sure of their dealer network and your location.
http://diablopaddlesports.com/store?cat=boats
being realistic
I think it’s important to be realistic about how one’s particular body can be adapted to various sports and in some cases to accept that it is not going to be practical. I would love to be able to downhill ski, but hip rotation (that I was born with and that was not fixed when I was young) makes me unable to snowplow - I can herringbone all day long but my feet turn out at a significant angle past my knee orientation and if I try a pigeon-toed stance my knees roll in and bump into each other, making me unable to set an edge or keep the skis aligned. There is no point in moping about it, I just am not built to downhill ski. But there are plenty of other sports I can do.
And I had to drop out of Aikido training because inner ear damage from a long ago bike wreck left me with benign positional vertigo, which means if I abruptly tumble 180 degrees (a necessary move in Aikido) it leaves me violently dizzy, nauseated and disoriented.
SOmeone who is 36" across has to have a hip circumference of at least 100 inches. Other than possibly a custom rowing wherry (like CLC’s Ocean or the Pygmy Wineglass) or a Welsh currrach, I can’t think of any type of solo paddle boat that would fit a body of that girth.
Jon boat
8 or 10 foot.
A PFD may be difficult to find.
It is good to hear that she wants
to paddle. I have met many people on meet-up trips that have a romantic? idea of what paddling is like. One five mile trip and they are done.
Does she have any upper body strength? Something has to move that mass.
I wish her the best.
just my opinion, but Marshalls idea is
probably the best of the lot. Several inflatable standup paddle boards out there that don’t require a person to stand up to propel them. Strap something like a thermarest trekr chair to it and away she goes, getting great calorie burning exercise and hopefully doing something she enjoys. Best of success in your help!
hmm.
That Diablo Amigo looks like it might be just the thing. seems to be a paddleboard/kayak hybrid and is 37.5 inches wide with a recess for footpegs and plenty of unobstructed sitting room without the high seat option. A paddler really does not need a seat back to paddle anyway, in fact leaning back is poor form and hampers efficient stroking.
Only drawback is that it’s 75 lbs. Yikes! Definitely need a cart to transport that.
They have multiple dealers in Texas, according to the website.
Nucanoe
http://www.nucanoe.com/nucanoe-classic/
Not a lightweight option but a viable design at 41" beam.
I’m still thinking the SOTSUP With a camp chair might be more fun. They can certainly be lighter than the poly SOT options.
Get a board with some forward rdfs to tie in a small cooler, I mean foot brace, I mean hydration station, you get the idea.
You’re in warmer climes, correct?
See you on the water,
Marshall
The River Connection, Inc.
Hyde Park, NY
845-229-0595
www.the-river-connection.com
hudsonriverpaddler.org
yes
The Nucanoe classic looks like it would work with a properly placed low wide seat, it would be my choice in this situation. I don't think a camp chair of the right dimensions exists.
Ditto what Pirate below says re pfd, that part may be harder to find, may have to be custom-made...
Inflatable might work
I’ve had some large friends start with an inflatable and it worked for them.
Many big paddlers have used canoes and a lot of people have swished themselves into on onto kayaks.
Overweight Paddlers - Reality Check
A few years ago my wife’s friend brought a friend along to learn how to surf kayak. Her friend was quite heavy, my guess 300 lbs. Her butt was quite wide, not 36", but wide. She could not exactly fit in an ocean kayak frenzy, but I gave her a boost by sitting on a canoe kneeling pad, and she tucked her caboose into the boat -sort of.
She could not stay upright in the boat. When the boat tipped over she did not have enough arm strength to re-enter the kayak from the water. She started having chest pains after struggling in the water.
While someone might think they are only going to be lilly dipping or flat water paddling an over weight person is going to be in real danger if they can not perform a self rescue in an SOT. Realistically someone who wants to kayak should have the ability to swim 100 yards, and reinter a capsized kayak. If they can’t perform at that fitness level. They should not really be out on the water.
Someone finally said it…
I have not known any woman with that kind of weight issue in her hips who was really safe any distance from shore. The problem in all the cases I have seen is that their upper body strength is not sufficient to get the back onto or in a boat if they capsize in water over their head.
It is simply not safe to be in a situation where you can’t get out of the water, either due to distance from shore or other factors. If someone can’t get back into a boat on the water, they have to stay where they can swim to shore. A PFD that is comfortable for paddling is not going to have enough flotation to solve the problem.
Yes lean people float less well, but there is a point where total weight rules the day. Before you help her into a boat, do you know what her swimming ability is? That distance should drive the boat choice.
Have followed the thread
Have followed the thread…
Wondering who is going to be there to assist in rescue if prospective paddler uses unsuitable boat, has little to no paddling skills, doesn’t find a pfd that fits correctly, lacks strong swimming skills, and ends up capsizing boat in deep water?
Anyone who gets involved better have their game together. Sounds like accident waiting to happen to me.
BOB
Having struggled all my life
with weight issues I can empathize. At age 64 I believe I a have finally gotten to the right state of mind and landed on the right program for me. I have lost 95 Lbs. I am 5'10" 180 Lbs. and still heading down - my goal is 165-170. I expect to reach my goal in 30 days and then I start the even harder work of maintaining that weight. So, it can be done. I did this without exercise other than walking. I will start exercising more regularly when I hit that weight goal. I did this with an excellent doctor supervised weight program that really worked very very well for me. I did not experience terrible hunger - not even close.
I just purchased a new kayak because my old kayak no longer fits properly. I am really looking forward to ice out.
Good luck to the OP. You are on the right track. Just got a little way to go. You will get there and you will love your new dimensions.
Congratulations
good work three cheers!
That’s terrific, rpg51
Little doubt you’ve added years to your life and probably feel a heck of a lot better too.
Hope the OP’s friend is as successful as you’ve been.
Ditto
25 yrs ago had a surf class that included a young fit and quite big short woman, About 225 and 5’4. She was able to pull off a few assisted rescues where I rescued her Later as an instructor I was exposed to more middle aged obese people and it was pretty obvious the activity just wasn’t right for them. People lose strength as they get older and an older obese person just has too many strikes against them. I had one woman in a second level class that goes over a range of rescues, skills and strokes. She had a nice well used composite recreational kayak but she refused to do any rescues. I asked what she would do in a capsize and she said “swim to shore”. She knew her limits.
I see a lot of guys in the 300lbs + range looking at SOT fishing kayaks with the beach chair seats and I seriously doubt any product testing was done with 300lb paddlers for all the equipment failures and deck cracks that develop.
There are some very heavy folks who can participate in kayaking but they already had some kind of baseline fitness. The folks who come to it without that fitness, or lost it with the weight gain over the decades are up against too many challenges for paddling more than a swimming distance to shore.
Be careful
One of the things about a high seat is that it requires a much wider boat for the same load so they may feel tippy for a 300lb person even if the specs say “500 lb capacity”. Also some of those boats with sliding seats are designed that way so an average weight person can stand up with the seat slid back. A 300lb person can really affect the trim if they’re 6" back on a short kayak. Kayaks like the WS Ride 115 with their fancy seat will splay apart allowing the seat to pop out.
That 42" wide Nucanoe with some kind of custom seat set up sounds like a better choice.
Old Town Tripper
I realized the other day that I have lost more than my favorite royalex tandem tripping canoe weighs. Think of it - six months ago I was walking around with the equivalent of an Old Town Tripper (plus a little) on my back all day every day. Phew. Blows me away. You just have to get yourself in the right frame of mind. For me - a plan for a canoe trip in the Yukon Territories was the incentive I needed.
big kayak
look at ocean kayak big game prowler,Jackson kayaks makes several nice sit on top models, check out the big rig or big tuna, sit on tops , they may be worth a test paddle…