Nigel Foster Kayak Seat Question???

Advice
#1

Hi,

A few quick questions about the seats in the Foster boats. I have a Legend (now with a Shadow seat) and find that the seat flexes a lot from side to side when edging. I also find that it will tilt upwards after rolling, which is annoying. Not sure if anyone else has these issues



My first question–is the seat on your boat glued to the hull or is it free to rotate up and down like mine?



Next question is, does your seat have foam blocks between the seat and the hull to reduce lateral flexing?



thanks

Matt

#2

in my shadow…
The seat was glued down in the front, to the inside of the cockpit. I did notice it flexing inside the boat during aggressive edging and rolling. After rolling wasn’t uncommon for the seat to creak back into position (maybe that was just my back!) Hence replacing the seat with a foam/gel Necky jobbie…

#3

If you allow flex, it will break.
Mine is glued to the bottom of the hull. I think it’s best to also put foam blocks between the hangers and the hull. Whatever works to keep it from flexing at all. Some foam glued in will do the trick if you don’t want to glue the seat directly to the hull.

We were just talking about this issue at Bogue Inlet on Friday while discussing some broken seats. We did a downwind ocean race in wind and 5’ seas on Saturday along Topsail Island ending in Surf City. I checked to make sure my seat was securely in place without flexing as I figured it would be put to the test, and I didn’t want that happening.

But yes, I would be surprised if it didn’t break left as is. It’s an easy but important fix.

#4

thanks
I got the boat used and the seat that was in it was not glued down to the hull and neither is the one that is in there now. I suspected that it was supposed to be glued down since the seat rotating up when rolling was super annoying and I could not imagine that design being intentional.



I will use some epoxy and glue it down. I suspect that will take care of a lot of the lateral flexing to a great extent, but I will install some kind of foam blocks as well.



Not being the orginal owner of the boat I was not sure what the original configuration was, but was pretty sure this could not be right.