I placed a new Wenonah sliding seat in an 81 WWC1 jensen in between the original wood seat mounts. The problem I’m having is the sliding seat is too high. About 2inches higher. Very twitchy on a calm lake and it caused me to dump 4 times in class I rapids last weekend. It was the boat and not me I’m sure of it. I have some ideas but has someone else done this without taking it to a welder?
Brian
I don’t know what that boat is, but
I have built and also lowered and moved several sliding seats in Wenonahs, and I just use pieces of aluminum channels rivited to the sides at the height where I want the seat, and then use aluminum tubing for the cross pieces.
jack L
1984 wwc1
I ordered a pedestal slider from Wenonah with the dimensions I required. You can go this route or do as suggested by jackl.
Riveted four,4" aluminum angle to flat pieces of fiberglass from a corvette and glued the assembly to the hull after attaching the seat pedestal to the fiber/alum brackets with pins and clips for possible removal. Tilting the seat forward with a few used nylon weedwacker blades make a huge difference in stability. Trimmed hull/ seat position also makes a big diff in whitewater…let me say a huge difference.
I used
– Last Updated: Jun-10-10 5:17 PM EST –
all the existing pieces to lower one on a Prism. I cut the vertical angle off just above the bottom square tubes. I screwed the front and rear angles to the square tube and mounted the round tubes to the angle. You can add tube spacers to raise the seat back up to whatever level you feel comfortable with.
http://i528.photobucket.com/albums/dd323/Chethro/IMGP0403.jpg
http://i528.photobucket.com/albums/dd323/Chethro/IMGP0407.jpg
http://i528.photobucket.com/albums/dd323/Chethro/IMGP0406.jpg
Thanks
Those pics help. Shouldn’t be a problem riveting some channel and reinstall of the tubes.
Brian
WWC1
Gearwoman bought a WWC1 at a canoe club sale, no seat included. Just the wooden slats glassed into the hull bottom. We ordered a seat from Wenonah and stated what hull it was going into. No problems, it fit right between the slats. Now we have no idea what the original seat height was, and the boat always seems lively when you get in. But ten minutes and it feels like home. The boat handles rough water beautifully, driest ride on big water, open lakes, etc. Neither of us has paddled WW with it. We have paddled it in races and it will keep up the Advantages, its just much deeper and drier.
It would be hard to use Jack L’s method and mount thru the sides. You would have to create slide tubes inboard of the brackets mounted to the hull. Easy on the tandem with the taper at each end, but not so simple in a solo. Sawyer did the best job of it in their solos, but their method used some contoured side brackets that would not be easy to home fabricate.
Bill
Seat height
I’m a big guy and with a higher seat it causes the boat to be tippy for me. The boat does cruise nicely and it is a nice daytripper boat on the cheap. The original seat in mine was the small fiberglass seat mounted to a couple of Al brackets. It looked like worms tunneled on the outside. Comparing original seat height with tne new seat I would say the old seat sat 1 to 1.5inches lower then the new seat.
The new sliding seat fits like you described in between the wood slats. My plan is to cut the wood slats down, grind the al angle bracket off the new seat mounting post, cut the posts down, replace al angle bracket the same way using bolts/nuts and install seat. It will work just as before only lower. I made a footbrace for the boat as well out of 1in copper pipe since it has the same wood slat mounts. To scared to put holes in the hull for an adjustable footbrace.
I bought Yanoer’s Sawyer Starlight and it has that adjustable seat height system you talked about.
WWC1 Seat Height
Back in the late 70’s early 80s when I was downdriver racing in a WWC1 everyone was raising the seat to get more power/speed. Twitchy until you had some seat time. That being said I lowered the seat in my J200 that I use for a workout boat these days.
Nice work Chet!
Is that the boat your son uses?
Jim
Thanks
Yes, that’s his boat. I need to try it out, but it’s hard not to take the Rapidfire out. The seat lowering was pretty easy to do, but it took a couple of different designs to get the back rest to be solid and still be able to slide with the seat.
Finished
Maybe a few others can use this information. From the bottom of the support column or boat I measured 4 1/8 inches. Took an angle grinder and made my cuts. Cut away the extra column material from the angle piece. Drilled my new holes through the angle and shorter columns. Some new SS screws and I’m back in business. I have not tested the boat out yet the weekend was too busy. The 4 1/8 inches is important because it still allows clearance for the new sliding seat pan over the wood slat mounts currently in the boat. This lowers the seat 1 inch or so. Nothing radical but should improve the boats stability for me.
Brian