I’ve raised the seat on most of the yaks that I have owned. Yes, it makes it more tippy. Too high and it is TOO tippy.
The wider the yak, the less the seat height is going to affect her. The wider the yak the slower it typically is going to be, also.
I’m nearly 82 and I just bought my first inflatable yak. It is 32 inches wide. For the very first time in 15 years of yakking, I flipped it the other day while getting in. It turned out that I simply hadn’t inflated it fully, and the side tubes gave way when I put my arms on them to steady it. Yesterday, I fully inflated it and fished for nearly two hours in the very same yak.
Some people will never be comfortable in a kayak. It is just different strokes for different folks, I’m afraid.
We just bought HooDoo Element 95 SOT kayaks and they are so easy to get in and out of and I am 5’1". If you have the kayak in about 3 ft of water, you can just sit on the edge and swing your legs into/out of the boat. Its not tipsy. Sometimes I use my paddle to help and sometimes my husband is my “standup bar”! But most times I need no help at all.
The way my wife Hallie describes it, it’s just like sitting down into a bathtub. We have sit in kayaks though. She gets into a foot or two of water and gets in and out like she does the tub: one foot in the yak, one on the river bed, then sit down onto the seat. She is a little unsteady sometimes but manages.
I’ve got a couple different ways I board mine. I, too, use the bathtub method. On exit I might put a knee down onto the river bed especially if I have something to keep my leg dry. If not, I swing a leg over the edge and stand up on that leg alone.
I have very limited range if motion in my back. Putting power into the paddle is no problem but bending forward is.
I added a cushion to one of my kayak seats but that’s all the raising I’ve done.
Instead of a stand up bar I have seen people use the handle off of a ski rope. They clip it to the grab handle and just drop it onto the deck when not in use. If the boat gets to tipsy when you raise the seat just add out riggers. Do whatever ever it takes for her to keep paddling.
I just bought a used Heritage Angler 10 that had a modified (higher) seat (the factory seat is really just the bottom of the boat with a dinky little back cushion). I got an SOT as I’m new, intend to fish, and have a knee due for replacement; I got in my friends sit-in OK, but had help getting out. So to go alone need option for no help exit.
To the raised seat: if it’s not factory original, be prepared. I’ve a strong core and good balance, but I got about 10’ from launch - flat water - and felt kind I was sitting on a log.
As I turned back, I was careful and still flipped.
I got home and removed the seat. Im using the mentioned by an OP of knee deep, back in and reverse to exit. I bought a cheap camping pad seat and put pool noodles for a back rest (I tend to sit upright and don’t need a higher back for now). Plus this is my “beginning” boat and trying to learn w/o breaking the bank.
Good luck! But again please be wary of changing your center of gravity - the angler is a decent, stable little boat but wow. On the plus side, I hadn’t had a swim in a crick in years!
The most common thing I see around here for fishing kayaks is people take something like your Heritage Angler 10 SOT and add a little riser made from wood and then attach a stadium seat back from WalMart or similar. They are very comfortable seats and don’t add much weight and give you that 4-6” of height that helps with our wore out knees. They then find as you did the boat is way to easy to tip and then they add DIY outriggers that fit into the rod holders behind the seat. They make them from PVC pipe and leave the tops open to become the new rod holders. There are quite a few DIY designs but most use crab pot floats you can order on line. They keep them back on the SOT and not too wide and they don’t interfere with paddling.
Enough people are doing this for fishing I would think they would be selling them already converted but I haven’t seen any one doing it.
I posted a photo of the seat back I used similar in my canoe in post #4 of this thread.
I haven’t tried the kayak @Indystarr posted above. It looks like they are going after this issue with that design. I wonder if they have a hull design that’s intended to give higher initial stability also. I’m personally not a fan of sitting with knees high / butt low position for things like fishing where you are always leaning forward. It looks like that seating has some of that Adirondack chair feel to it. That style does give a good knee angle and also keeps your CG lower. Straight back and level seat with the same knee angle really pushes CG higher.
In the end it was the reason I wanted a canoe over a SOT as I didn’t want to get into dealing with outriggers. I have had a couple of people in modified SOT tell me I look very comfortable in the canoe seated upright.
